In this episode, precipitated by a Facebook post which caught the attention of many, titled, “When Law Enforcement Meets Autism”, Ricardo A. Gomez shared the events occurring in relation to his son Ryan, a young adult with autism, who was with a direct support worker at a local park recently. Said event escalated into PC245, assault with a deadly weapon. Ricardo starts off giving some background on becoming a Law Enforcement Officer in California as well some history of his son Ryan, who received a diagnosis of Autism at age 3. From here, he narrates the events that occurred on August 16 when his son was at a local park with a job coach a 911 came in as a level one PC245, assault with a deadly weapon. Based on the call and the information provided by dispatch, the deputies believed they were going to encounter a mentally unstable adult attacking a family with rocks due to a misunderstanding of Ryan’s behavior. Ricardo calmly outlines the timeline from the perspective of a parent receiving a call from his wife at work that his son was in the middle of a critical incident as well as from the perspective of a trained Law Enforcement Officer. His narrative of his inner experience of these events and the many questions raised in his mind from both perspectives gives the listener a chance to hear his process of maintaining outer calm while continuing to note concerns along the way without letting unknowns and fear cloud his ability to remain present and do what was needed to help his son and family recover and stabilize from this traumatic incident.
Despite moments of sheer terror as he imagined Ryan’s inner experience and the many unknowns with which he was faced over the course of the day, he was able to remain calm. Following the day’s events, Ricardo chose a proactive approach in attempting to piece together how an innocent situation evolved and escalated. He met with the branch of law enforcement involved in securing and transporting Ryan to a local facility for evaluation, reviewed the body cam footage from the police officer involved in the event, spoke with his son’s direct support professional and was able to gain understanding and insight which he chose to integrate into a learning experience. Ricardo composed a few facebook blog posts which can be read on his Facebook page and which has been posted as a guest blog post with his permission at https://nickysgardensofhope.com. He offers his interpretation of the situation as well as how he is using this event in which things could have ended in far more tragic ways to communicate the need for better training for families of special needs individuals in terms of how to act around police. In his words, ” This whole experience taught me that just as law enforcement receives tactical communication training, the autism community also needs training on how to communicate and react to law enforcement. We ended the meeting talking about putting a training together at our local church for parents of special needs and caseworkers on how to properly communicate/interact with law enforcement. This can help avoid unnecessary use of force situations.” Stay tuned for more information on how Ricardo’s valiant efforts to take the higher ground evolves into initiatives and opportunity to bridge gaps of communication and reduce fear surrounding interactions with police officers within the autism and special needs communities and give Law Enforcement an understanding and opportunity to better understand the challenges of a wide range of community members as they work to perform their jobs keeping all members of their community safe and secure.
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