Justice for Man with Down Syndrome by Gloria Jones

   During this past January, Robert Ethan Saylor, a 26 year old man with Down Syndrome, was killed by police after refusing to leave a movie theater. He had already sat through a showing of "Zero Dark Thirty", and he stayed in the theater (without paying for another ticket) to see the movie again.  The manager called in three off-duty deputies to remove the man. Reportedly, Saylor swore at the deputies and refused to leave the theater. Even though Saylor's helper warned the deputies not to be aggressive, they put him on the floor and handcuffed him. The incident is not completely clear, however Saylor suffered from a fracture in his throat cartilage and died from asphyxiation. It was ruled a homicide, yet the deputies were not charged and have since returned to work.

  I first heard about this event when I received an email from the victim's sister on Change.org asking me to sign a petition that requested Govener Martin O'Malley to further investigate the incident. As mentioned in the article the petition received 300,000 signatures in one week.
  The whole situation raises questions about our legal and justice system, especially in regard to disabled citizens. In fact, the article poses many of these questions. For example, should the police be further trained in how to deal with people with disabilities? Should the deputies have taken this much action just for a movie ticket? Why couldn't the deputies have talked it over with the man, or allowed his helper to persuade him to leave? Why weren't the deputies convicted of homicide?
These are all questions that one might ask after hearing about this case. Obviously we are unable to know what all happened because there was so much obscurity. Although that does not decrease the fact that the situation was mishandled and caused an irreversible loss for the family and friends of the man who was killed.
The people I have encountered in my life that had Down Syndrome were not aggressive people. However they do, sometimes, have difficulty with impulse control or understanding the exact situation around them and how to deal/cope with it. I'm definitely not trying to categorize them because they all have their own personalities just as everyone else. I'm only trying to emphasize the point that this man was not threatening the deputies in anyway. Yes, he was swearing at them, but the cops should know that Saylor was not immediately endangering them, and his helper could have dealt with the situation in much better terms if for no other reason then Saylor was more comfortable with someone who had been trained in how to deal with him. Regardless of the words that may have been exchanged or the minor infraction that Saylor was committing, he was not endangering anyone and he was not breaking any major law. Still, he was killed unjustly, and the men responsible faced no consequence for their actions. I believe not only should the case be reinvestigated, but law enforcement should be trained to better deal with disabled people in order to prevent incidents like this from happening again.

Source:
http://us.cnn.com/2013/08/29/opinion/perry-down-syndrome-death/?c=&page=1