To: The North Carolina State House, The North Carolina State Senate, and Governor Roy Cooper
Decriminalize Autism
Stop police brutality against autistics and other handicapped people. Stop transporting the handicapped from hospitals to psychiatric facilities in police vehicles in shackles. Demand that hospitals treat them on site according to their civil rights, and if they have to be transported, do so by ambulance with medical personnel.
Why is this important?
My adult son is autistic. Doctors and hospitals refuse him care and attempt to redirect us to institutional care. Every time he is in the emergency room, doctors want him sent to a state psycniatric hospital that has a history of deaths, not from natural causes. If I agreed to have him sent, he would be shackled and transported in a sheriff's car. I just called to have him transported to the ER, because he appeared to become increasingly agitated with a medication change. The police came with the paramedics and roughed him up. It must stop. We have to come up with humane ways to deal with mental handicaps. If the handicapped are not discriminated against and receive appropriate medical care, they are less likely to need crisis treatments.