A new Alabama law compels law enforcement officers to receive training in coping with people who have “invisible” disabilities and sensory demands, such as those with autism, stroke survivors, post-traumatic stress disorder, and others.
The Alabama statute, known as the Cade Noah Act, took effect on January 1. It states that every other year, the state’s trained officers must attend an hour-long training session on working with people with invisible disabilities. According to sources, the measure is named after the sponsor’s kid, who has autism.
Advocates say similar trainings have sparked attention in the Gulf South, where autism rates are rising and interactions with officers who have injured or killed someone with autism have made national headlines. Such occurrences have lately been reported in Salt Lake City, the Twin Cities’ suburbs, and Los Angeles.
“You can Google situations and get examples from all throughout the country about how things went tragically wrong. And I see them, and the most of it is just because they have not been trained,” said Bill Cannata, Autism and Law Enforcement Education Coalition program coordinator for Massachusetts-based Lifeworks.
Cannata said the program he directs has collaborated with groups and partnerships to train first responders in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and many other places. It had its largest-ever audience of more than 300 first responders in Baton Rouge at a training around six years ago.
The new training will be provided free of charge to Alabama law enforcement agencies by KultureCity, a Birmingham-area charity. Co-founder Julian Maha stated that the group built the training at the request of Salt Lake City officials, brought it back to Alabama, and is now expanding its reach with the new mandate.
As in Alabama, politicians in the region’s other two legislatures have recently attempted to incorporate similar trainings into regulations governing law-enforcement infrastructure, with varying outcomes.
Act 137 of 2020 mandated that Louisiana’s Department of Public Safety and Corrections develop a law-enforcement training course for working with people with autism “to ensure equitable treatment” and improve communication.
Bills requiring Mississippi’s public safety department to design a new autism training program have failed in committee at least twice, according to legislative records. State Rep. Christopher Bell has sponsored a similar bill in Mississippi’s legislative session, which began this month.
Dustin Chandler, a former police officer who works with self-advocates to provide first-responder autism and disability training classes in Alabama and Louisiana, claims that when he began performing the work in 2015, police chiefs told him there were no persons with autism in their district. Things have altered quite a bit since then.
“We prioritize safety in our training. It’s to ensure not only your own safety as a first responder, but also the safety of everyone else on the scene,” said Chandler, president and co-founder of the Alabama-based Interaction Advisory Group.
Alabama parents responded.
Two parents in Opp, Alabama, said the new rule appears to be a beginning point for cops dealing with persons with invisible disabilities, which include a wide range of ailments.
Wesley and Kristy Thompson, who have an autistic son, host a Facebook support group. The Thompsons’ 14-year-old is a musical child who enjoys playing the glockenspiel they bought him, but he is mute.
They had been concerned about what might happen if he encountered with a police officer in an unusual area.
“If somebody come[s] running at him, he’s going to run away because he thinks, oh, we’re playing chase,” Thompson said. “That could turn out to be a very bad situation.”
Kristy Thompson agreed that flashing lights and sirens might be frightening, especially for passengers with autism.
Wesley Thompson’s brother is a retired police officer, so they understand the constraints that policemen experience when making split-second decisions. Wesley Thompson even attempted to schedule training with his local police force for interacting with people with autism, but the timing never worked out.
He termed the new law an improvement to be proud of, but urged first responders to consider what is necessary as the “bare minimum.”
“These law enforcement agencies and other first responders obviously [can] take it upon themselves to expand on that hour,” said the law enforcement official.
‘I honestly didn’t know’
Maha stated that specific course materials for the newly mandated Alabama training cannot be disclosed. However, advocates who have worked in the space have detailed many ways that they incorporate into this type of training.
Cannata, a former firefighter and parent of an adult son with autism, believes sensory input can be uncomfortable or cause a “fight or flight” response in some people with autism. As a result, if it is safe for cops to turn off lights and sirens, this can be beneficial.
Chandler suggested that police may misunderstand a lack of eye contact or repetitive gestures, which are characteristic in some people with autism or other difficulties, as suspicious. It is extremely beneficial when officers can readily detect someone’s condition, such as by a license plate or driver’s license sticker.
Physical contact to diffuse a conflict may not be as effective, he explained. He observes that some people with autism have different pain thresholds and may be more sensitive to touch.
Working with people with disabilities requires police to learn to communicate, consider their options in the present, and make modifications, he explained.
“Back when I was on patrol, if I had somebody with a mental health condition, I really didn’t know what to do,” Chandler said.
