Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Opinion: Need to Focus on Excessive Police Force of People with Disabilities

This op-ed in The Hill co-authored by Jay Ruderman, the president of the Ruderman Family Foundation, and Jo Ann Simons, president and CEO of the Cardinal Cushing Centers in Massachusetts, is truly important. In part, it’s because the authors point out something that doesn’t get much attention in mainstream (or, sadly, nonprofit) press coverage of police brutality: Persons with disabilities are its all-too-frequent victims.
Ruderman and Simons write about the deaths of Ethan Saylor, a 26-year old with Down syndrome who died of asphyxiation after being dragged by police from his seat in a theater in Frederick, Maryland, in 2013, and James Boyd, a homeless man (reportedly diagnosed with schizophrenia) who was shot and killed by police officers in Albuquerque in March of 2014.

No comments:

Post a Comment