Disability Rights and Police Brutality
George Floyd, Jamar Clark, Philando Castile, Breyonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Botham Jean.
Reading the names of black Americans killed by police can be gut wrenching to the soul. As a black American, I often wonder why people might think my life doesn’t matter. While I have never had any serious interactions with the police, but throughout my life since I was four or five years old, I was called every racial slur. This means, this is not something children and young adults just think up, but something that is learned at home. The attitudes that black bodies don’t matter has always been something built into the fabric of this country, but it evolves into something different every generation — slavery, Jim Crow laws, police brutality, and the prison system. Many people consciously or unconsciously have been told by society that black people are automatically violent, aggressive, and sub-human. While things are changing, there is so much work we have to do as a society — some of the things can be done on an interpersonal level (diverse group of friends) and on a systemic level (laws to protect those most vulnerable against police brutality). Racial bias when it comes to policing should not go unchecked.
For black and brown people with disabilities and/or are queer, the impact of injustice can hit harder. “Folks with nonapparent disabilities are especially vulnerable to police violence, especially if they’re racially marginalized,” said Reyma McDeid, co-chair of the National Council on Independent Living’s Anti-Racism and Equity Task Force. “It impacts your ability to interact with a police officer.”
People of color with disabilities are forced to confront discrimination from a disability and racial standpoint. Intersectionality discussions in the disability community delve into the complex danger that is living as a Black person with a disability. Black members of the disability and LGBTQ communities also face violence and stigma from police and first responders. In general, people with disabilities are in heightened danger when dealing with the police, but Black people with disabilities are targeted at even higher and more oppressively violent rates. The disability community must remain committed to discussing protections for its members to prevent more loss of life, money, time and opportunity.
Police interactions can turn dangerous when a disabled person cannot immediately respond to an officer’s demands for compliance the same way that a non-disabled person would. And when law enforcement’s default is to respond violently to someone who doesn’t immediately obey demands, a disabled person is certainly at risk. For a Black disabled person, this risk is compounded by biased officers’ perception of them as more threatening than non-Black people.
Six years ago, Dontre Hamilton, who had schizophrenia, was shot 14 times by a Milwaukee police officer who had not received any specialized training on interacting with people with mental illness. After George Floyd’s death, people of color with disabilities were inspired to march for Hamilton and others, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
In a Washington survey of people with disabilities who said they experienced harassment, only 12% said they filed a police report. Distrust of police was one reason, according to a report by the D.C. Office of Human Rights. The office found that people with disabilities are publicly targeted for harassment more often than any other marginalized group aside from immigrants.
Studies and police reports by jurisdiction show that a large portion of people with disabilities are victims of excessive force by police, and children and adults with disabilities are more likely to be arrested in and out of schools.
How to protect yourself when interacting with the police if you are a person of color with a disability:
· Have an identification card attached to your steering wheel and the bottom of your mirror indicating your disability and accommodations needed
· When driving, have a letter from a doctor indicating your disability and what accommodations are needed.
· It is important to know your rights. You do not lose their disability rights simply because you are stopped, detained, arrested, prosecuted, or incarcerated.
· Create a game plan if police violate your rights. For example, consulting with a disability rights attorney.
Dr. Martin Luther King said: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Meaning if we are not a part of the change and are committed to discussions on race, gender, immigration, and how it intersects with the disability community, then, it hinders the progress for all of us to live in a more just and equitable society.
P.S. Check in on your black and brown friends, especially those in the disability community –police brutality incidents all over our country can take an extreme mental toll, especially when we are worried if we will be next. Ask them: “Are you okay?”
