Comments by "Widdekuu91" (@Widdekuu91) on "BODYCAM VIDEO: Fresno PD releases bodycam footage showing teen with autism being handcuffed | ABC7" video.
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@瑠ちゃん
Just from the top of my head, here's a few.
Being touched by a person you do not know. Being taken away from your family, even if it's for a short while. Being taken to a strange place or unknown place with strong smells, bright lights, loud noises.
People doing stuff without telling you what'll happen (grabbing you and not explaining or taking things out of their pocket without explaining.)
For me personally, handcuffs behind my back and being patted down would be enough to send me into a crying fit, likely also because of PTSD.
A hit with a baton would hurt, sure, but I'd rather have my arm broken by a baton than to me handcuffed and laid on my stomach with two officers shouting above my head.
You have to keep in mind that, in general, autistic people experience things 5 times as intense, especially when strong emotions (pleasure, fear, anger) is involved, so the fact that he is calling out for help and cries that the handcuffs hurt him, is because they really do.
It's like opening the curtains to someone with a massive headache and the sun burning not only their retina's but their entire brain. It's an overwhelming feeling and even just the cold metal itself could feel like they're burning his skin or freezing it.
There are trainingvideo's for officers about these situations and especially when someone is not escalating the situation, the idea is to keep things calm and not escalate things by touching, shouting, pushing, over-asking or demanding/seeking eye-contact (eye contact is intense, and remember the 5x intensity I mentioned.. think of the most intense or threathening eyecontact you've had with someone and then imagine thát kindof intentisy during a meltdown or massive headache.)
Furthermore, ofcourse, this man was explaining how he was not intending to hurt anyone and kept explaining how he was not agressive and had no intention to be so.
He was very able to explain himself, unlike many other autistic people in a situation like that, and he was very calm (considering the situation) and STILL they put the handcuffs on him.
It is as if he humbled himself under them as not to be a threat and they took the opportunity and made things worse.
He was afraid of them, so he chose not to look like a threat. They treated him like a threat anyway and since he had no other option to humble himself further and make himself even more less-threathening, there was no way of getting out of the treatment he feared.
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@瑠ちゃん
Sorry that I keep adding long stories (autistic habit) but I also noticed he is freaking out about the vomit being near him and him being so close to it.
That is another thing, the smell of vomit is strong and he senses it probably so much stronger, not to mention, I know several people that get cleanliness-OCD-ish behaviour when stressed.
I know an autistic girl that had a bad day and normally she hates slugs, but this time she was trying to calm herself down and there was a slug near her and she nearly puked and had nightmares all week of having slugs on her body, in her clothes, in her food and she'd wake up screaming and crying, feeling filthy and panicky and covered in slime even though it wasn't there.
I have the same with maggots (I cannot eat after having seen them and will vomit if I try) and I know someone else has it with snails (house-snails, not slugs.)
Another has it with ladybugs and dogs and a third has it with tapwater for some reason. In calm situations, filth cán be fine (for some) but in high stress, the reaction can be to hyperclean and to associate 'being dirty/muddy' with the sensation of just..dying. With decay and dust and dying or being bad, mean, evil, filthy, unworthy, etc. It's psychological. That is why he is worrying about "the small things" like the vomit and the handcuffs hurting. Those are important to him at that point.
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