If you’re deaf and you drive a motor vehicle, in some states there’s a card available that’s designed to make it easier for you to communicate with police when they pull you over.
There’s one such card circulating in Illinois, where I live. There are similar ones in Virginia and West Virginia. The way it’s supposed to work is, when the cop comes up to a deaf driver’s window, the driver flashes the card and points to where it says I Am Deaf or Hard of Hearing. And then the cop points to one of the symbols under the heading of “violations.”
On the Illinois card, one of the symbols is a silhouette of a bottle and a wine glass. If the police point to that, I guess that’s their way of telling deaf drivers they’re suspected of driving drunk. Another symbol is a silhouette of a car with a trail of squiggly tire tracks and under it is the word “reckless.” There’s also a silhouette of a man standing behind prison bars. I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean. Maybe it means the cop thinks the deaf driver is an escaped convict.
Some police departments are stocking up on these cards and giving them to officers to keep in their vehicles to have handy in case they encounter someone they suspect is a deaf driver.
This all sounds like a good idea, but I wonder how it works in the real world. Like, for instance, any deaf driver with one of these cards ought to keep it out in the open at all times, especially if they’re not white. Because if the card is tucked away in the glove box or under the seat and the deaf driver reaches for it while a fidgety cop looks on, well, we all know what’s likely to happen next. And later, the cop will probably swear up and down that the card looked like a gun or a butcher knife.
There also really needs to be some version of a communication card like this for deaf pedestrians to carry around, because it’s not just deaf drivers who have trouble with police. The cards need to be updated to include such frequently used phrases as, “I’m deaf, so please don’t pepper-spray me.”
In September 2003, Steven Spencer of Wheeling, Illinois, who is deaf, went on trial on charges of resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer. Police had gone to Spencer’s home earlier that year responding to a call about a domestic dispute. A police officer pepper-sprayed Spencer in the face because, the officer testified, he thought Spencer was trying to punch him in the face. Spencer said he was making a gesture in sign language. Spencer was later handcuffed and taken away; he admitted in his trial that he did fight back because the pepper spray blinded him, so he couldn’t see (or hear) what was going on.
The jury acquitted Spencer of all charges. He later sued the officer who sprayed him and the Village of Wheeling in federal court, claiming excessive force and violation of the Rehabilitation Act, which protects the civil rights of disabled people. The lawsuit was unsuccessful.
The cards also really need to say, “I’m deaf, so please don’t shoot me.”
The cards also really need to say, “I’m deaf, so please don’t shoot me.”
In 2010, John Williams, a Native American man, crossed a street in Seattle, Washington. Williams was a totem pole carver, so he was carrying a knife and a block of wood. A city policeman exited his vehicle with his gun drawn and ordered Williams to drop the knife. Williams didn’t comply and, within seconds, the officer shot him dead. But Williams was hard of hearing, so he may well have never heard the officer’s command.
In 2017, Magdiel Sanchez was shot dead by police while he was on the porch of his home in Oklahoma City. According to police, Sanchez was holding a metal pipe and two officers ordered him to put it down. Even though witnessing neighbors were yelling to police that Sanchez was deaf, when Sanchez did not put the pipe down one officer tasered him and another shot him.
These aren’t isolated incidents. Google “deaf people being tasered, sprayed, shot by police.” You’ll find a bunch. There’s Daniel Harris, Eric Smith, Errol Shaw, Jonathan Meister. And deaf folks aren’t the only disabled people with law enforcement horror stories.
In 2016, the Ruderman Family Foundation released a white paper entitled “Disability: The Missing Word When We Talk about Policing and Violence.” The report estimates that disabled people make up a third to half of all people killed by law enforcement officers.
As an example, the study relates the story of the outrageous death of Ethan Saylor, a twenty-six-year-old man with Down syndrome. Saylor went to see the movie Zero Dark Thirty at a movie theater in Frederick, Maryland, in 2013. After the movie ended, Saylor wanted to stay for another showing. The theater manager and the assistant who accompanied Saylor could not persuade him to leave. The manager then called security officers, but Saylor still wouldn’t budge.
So, according to reports, the officers yanked Saylor out of his seat and tried to handcuff him. There was a big struggle as the officers wrestled him to the ground; Saylor ended up with a crushed larynx and died.
The study also talks about Antonio Martinez. In 2012, the twenty-two-year-old man with Down syndrome was walking to the bakery owned and operated by his family, where he worked. He was wearing a black hoodie. A San Diego County sheriff’s deputy drove up next to Martinez and told him to stop. But Martinez kept walking. So the officer got out of his car, pepper-sprayed him, beat him into submission with his baton, handcuffed him, and took him into custody.
Martinez was charged with obstruction of justice. The charges were dropped the next day. As an act of contrition, police department officials offered to give the Martinez family a turkey dinner with all the trimmings for Christmas. The family said no thanks. Instead, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of Martinez and he received a $1 million settlement.
Jay Ruderman, president of the foundation, wrote an op-ed about law enforcement violence incidents like these that was published in The Hill in 2015.
“The national conversation about race we’re having right now, even at its most rancorous, is essential and long overdue,” Ruderman wrote. “But we also need a similarly serious one about the rights of many others among us who also face severe disadvantage and marginalization. We must talk about how we can include them in the mainstream of society. We shouldn’t wait for the next casualty.”
This is why I worry a lot about my friend Charlie. Charlie is on the autism spectrum and sometimes checks himself into psychiatric hospitals for a few days to deal with depression, anxiety, and panic attacks. Charlie is African American, thirtyish-looking, husky. This is a lethal combination because, physically, Charlie fits a certain standard police “be-on-the-lookout-for” suspect profile.
So it seems inevitable to me that someday Charlie is going to be confronted by police. And when that happens, he will probably freak out. If the police tell him to freeze or put his hands against the wall or whatever, I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t comply. If he thinks he can run away, he’ll probably try and maybe he’ll get shot in the back. If there’s no way to run, he may very well fight back and maybe he’ll get shot in the chest.
Maybe Charlie should have a T-shirt or a gigantic button printed up that says, “Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Autistic.”
I wish there was some kind of communication card I could give to Charlie, so he could flash it when stopped by police, to make it clear as hell to them that he has autism, et cetera. But again, I wouldn’t want him to keep the card concealed in his pocket or wallet because of what could happen if he reached for it. I’d want him to have it on full display at all times. Maybe he could wear it hanging from a lanyard around his neck.
Or, better yet, maybe Charlie should have a T-shirt or a gigantic button printed up that says, “Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Autistic.”
He can wear the shirt or button at all times, even when he’s home alone in his pajamas, in case police knock on his door. He should also have “Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Autistic” tattooed on his chest, just in case police approach him while he’s shirtless at the beach.
If Charlie would do all that, I wouldn’t worry about him so much.