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Family: Boy, 15, shot to death after attacking police had autism disorder

MaggieD

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A 15-year-old boy who suffered from an autism disorder was shot and killed by police in his Calumet City home after he threatened officers and cut one of them with a knife, police and the boy's family said. The family called police this morning after Stephon Watts, who suffered from Asperger's syndrome, became upset and did not want to go to school, said his mother Danelene Powell-Watts. Asperger's is an autism-type disorder in which a person often has normal or high intelligence, but struggles with social skills and repetitive behavior.

Police were called about 8:30 a.m. to the home in the 500 block of Forsythe Avenue, an address that was familiar with police, said Calumet City Police Chief Edward Gilmore. "This is an address that's flagged in our system as having a autistic young man there who is very strong and likes to fight with the police." Five officers were consequently sent to the home, Gilmore told a news conference. When they arrived, the boy was in the basement, holding a kitchen knife, Gilmore said. Two of the officers went to the basement and the boy "lashed out" with the knife and struck one of them in the forearm, Gilmore said.

"At that time, cornered and having no way to retreat back up the stairs, the officers fired one shot each, striking the (boy) twice," Gilmore said. "Unfortunately, the officer thought that his life was in jeopardy." Gilmore was uncertain of where Watts was hit, but his mother said the boy -- who stood at 5-foot-10 and weighed 220 pounds -- was shot in the head. The officer who was cut was treated on the scene by paramedics, Gilmore said.

Police have been to the home 12 times since June 2010, 10 times to deal just with this boy and domestic issues involving him, Gilmore said. The 15-year-old had wielded knives before, including barricading himself in a bathroom with a knife, prompting police to call out a negotiator, Gilmore said.

On Dec. 10, Stephon's birthday, police were called after he punched his mother in the face, Gilmore said. The boy fled his home with a knife and officers gave chase, eventually hitting him twice with Tasers.

Both officers in today's shooting are on paid administrative leave until the completion of an investigation by Illinois State Police. Calumet City police officers last year attended a class dealing with people with autism disorders, and all 84 have been trained to deal with them, according to Gilmore....



This is a tragedy. Who's at fault here? Anyone?

Family: Boy, 15, shot to death after attacking police had autism disorder - chicagotribune.com
 
I don't think it's anybody's fault. The cops did what they had to do, but the kid was suffering from a mental illness. There is no need to place any blame. It's just a terrible tragedy.
 
Very tragic:

seems to me the medical and health profession field is at fault for this problems - I know nothing of their background as a family. But medical professionals offer little in the means of help for parents trying to raise violent autistic children and most medical insurance providers don't cover enough to give support.

Since autism is on the rise - the government and medical fields need to work together ot give a more firm foundation of support for the parents and enable better care and understanding.
 
The police were wrong. They should have used non-lethal force like a taser or aimed their shots somewhere else. The boy is mentally ill, they knew this and went in with 5 officers. The second they saw he had a knife they should have tased him. They acted improperly and due to their actions this person is now dead. However, if the boy was like this routinely he should have been hospitalized and placed on medications.
 
The police were wrong. They should have used non-lethal force like a taser or aimed their shots somewhere else. The boy is mentally ill, they knew this and went in with 5 officers. The second they saw he had a knife they should have tased him. They acted improperly and due to their actions this person is now dead. However, if the boy was like this routinely he should have been hospitalized and placed on medications.
tazers are designed to deal with non lethal force. knives are extremely lethal and in distances less than 20 feet, are often more deadly
 
Very tragic:

seems to me the medical and health profession field is at fault for this problems - I know nothing of their background as a family. But medical professionals offer little in the means of help for parents trying to raise violent autistic children and most medical insurance providers don't cover enough to give support.

Since autism is on the rise - the government and medical fields need to work together ot give a more firm foundation of support for the parents and enable better care and understanding.

Very insightful. I agree with you that medication may have resolved this boy's problems. There's some pretty powerful psychotropic drugs out there that might have made a difference in this young boy's life. Sometimes, though, parents don't like to drug their children. I think that's an ongoing problem in some cases. I guess we'll never know what really went on here.
 
Having a hard time feeling too bad for a man getting killed after punching his own mother in the face and attacking the police with a knife. I'm divided on how much of the blame we can really put on him, given his mental condition, but it's certainly a good deal more than none of it.
 
tazers are designed to deal with non lethal force. knives are extremely lethal and in distances less than 20 feet, are often more deadly

Don't get me wrong, the officer's life was in danger and lethal force is justified. However, I don't think killing him was the best course of action and the situation could have been handled better.

Truthfully the blame also lies with the parents who never had their child hospitalized or given therapy (whether that be counselling or medication). This is assuming that he wasn't treated.
 
Don't get me wrong, the officer's life was in danger and lethal force is justified. However, I don't think killing him was the best course of action and the situation could have been handled better.

Truthfully the blame also lies with the parents who never had their child hospitalized or given therapy (whether that be counselling or medication). This is assuming that he wasn't treated.

Yeah....that's kind of where I am on it, Digsbe. My best friend's son is 26 years old, 6'4", and mentally handicapped. Sue always says that she wishes he was either just a bit less handicapped -- or just a bit more. She says that because he is so aware of how different he is...and what he misses in his life compared to his 24-year-old brother who's getting married shortly. He has lots of trouble handling his anger. His story might not read much differently than this young man's.

He's man-handled his mom, punched walls, gotten so angry Sue's hurriedly left the house to avoid his temper. He punched her once. The police have been to her home three or four times. (Her heart is absolutely broken! for her son. She keeps him on some psychotropic meds that, lately, have controlled him extremely well. But she sees that he's drugged...and feels really bad about it. So.....as she's done in the past, she's just begun cutting back on his meds. Me? I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. Again.
 
Don't get me wrong, the officer's life was in danger and lethal force is justified. However, I don't think killing him was the best course of action and the situation could have been handled better.

Truthfully the blame also lies with the parents who never had their child hospitalized or given therapy (whether that be counselling or medication). This is assuming that he wasn't treated.

years ago, a guy I know was chief of a small city near cincinnati (you can google it and perhaps find it) His name is Paul Toth and the city was North College Hill. A woman called the police over her son acting erratic, he was waiving a knife and threatening his mother. So Paul shows up and finds that the 18 year old man had taken his father hostage and was having some sort of major league psychotic episode. After Paul got the father to safety he went back inside to deal with the nutcase. The guy lunged at him with the knife, and Toth, who used to shoot in pistol leagues with me, killed the man. It was clearly justified and ruled so but the mother of the slain man went ballistic and screamed that the officer should have disarmed an 18 year old man swinging in knife.

There might have been someone at fault there but it sure wasn't Chief Toth. Cops don't have a duty to die so they can "understand" a violent person even if the person is mentally ill
 
It's tragic for all involved. However, this kid was as big as a large male, and had obviously been out of control... dangerously so... for years. I don't want to heap blame on anyone here, but if police are putting their lives on the line dozens of times over a few years, clearly this boy needs to be either medicated or placed in a controlled environment where his needs can be safely met.

Perhaps everything had been tried, medication and needs-specific education, etc., and had all failed. If so, the parents must have been at their wit's end. Still, I can't fault the officers for what they did, given his previous history of attacking police with knives and the fact that he had just sliced the guy's partner up in front of his eyes.
 
Here's a noble idea: How about the person to blame for this is the one who punched his mom in the face, the one who slashed a cop with a knife? Having a mental illness doesn't absolve one of responsibility. Even the most mentally ill are locked up, maybe not in jail, but at the funny farm. You can't just go around slashing cops and claim mental illness. I've never heard of autism causing that. My mother taught autistic kids and violence was NEVER one of their issues.
 
Here's a noble idea: How about the person to blame for this is the one who punched his mom in the face, the one who slashed a cop with a knife? Having a mental illness doesn't absolve one of responsibility. Even the most mentally ill are locked up, maybe not in jail, but at the funny farm. You can't just go around slashing cops and claim mental illness. I've never heard of autism causing that. My mother taught autistic kids and violence was NEVER one of their issues.

Here's an article about The Dark Side of Autism:

From The Washington Post, a frank look at the reality of autism for thousands of families. As the teens with autism age out this problem is going to grow. Cute little boys who punch are a far cry from adult men (and women) who can injure and even kill. Ask Trudy Steuernagel. We need better treatments so that our boys and girls, men and women on the spectrum receive proper care. We need to train law enforcement. And we need a national alarm to sound that the autism epidemic is very real. The coming years will bring grave challenges. Violent does not mean criminal - but is our system able to tell the difference? And how do we teach and protect our kids from the backlash?

"The Dark Side of Autism" Violence, Assault, Police Interaction - AGE OF AUTISM -- If you click, you'll see it mentions Asperger's too.

I think one of the problems these kids (adults) have is an inability to control their emotions...anger being the operative one.
 
Here's a noble idea: How about the person to blame for this is the one who punched his mom in the face, the one who slashed a cop with a knife? Having a mental illness doesn't absolve one of responsibility. Even the most mentally ill are locked up, maybe not in jail, but at the funny farm. You can't just go around slashing cops and claim mental illness. I've never heard of autism causing that. My mother taught autistic kids and violence was NEVER one of their issues.

One of my students I coach has Asbergers. She is a loving sweet young lady who is a major asset to our athletic club. The only way you can tell she is "different" is she has a flatline personality and generally is always smiling. She also is very bright and while she does not do well on time limited tests (like the SAT) she makes very high grades at a local university (a good one with high standards) and in a stuff like independent research projects she often wins awards

violence is not something I could even conceive of associating with her
 
Here's a noble idea: How about the person to blame for this is the one who punched his mom in the face, the one who slashed a cop with a knife? Having a mental illness doesn't absolve one of responsibility. Even the most mentally ill are locked up, maybe not in jail, but at the funny farm. You can't just go around slashing cops and claim mental illness. I've never heard of autism causing that. My mother taught autistic kids and violence was NEVER one of their issues.

It doesn't absolve someone of responsibility, however some mental illness is more severe than others and, if he was a danger to himself or others, he should've been to the "funny farm" a long time ago.

I have a friend who works with autistic kids and deals with violence all the time. But who knows.
 
The police were wrong. They should have used non-lethal force like a taser or aimed their shots somewhere else. The boy is mentally ill, they knew this and went in with 5 officers. The second they saw he had a knife they should have tased him. They acted improperly and due to their actions this person is now dead. However, if the boy was like this routinely he should have been hospitalized and placed on medications.

Coming at you with knives or scissors? Lethal force sounds good there.

A crazed **** armed with a knife within 20 -25 feet of a cop presents a deadly threat. The average dude can run that 20 feet in fractions of a second and probably too late for a cop to draw, point and then pull the trigger

Dead cop or dead suspect?
 
How is it that police in other countries are able to subdue violent individuals without killing them, yet USA police can't do it?

There is a serious flaw in police training when someone with a knife dies while facing off with several police who are armed with batons, tasers, and guns.

There is always a choice in whether or not you kill someone. ALWAYS. Whether you are a trained officer who is allowed to use legal force, or a civilian about to commit murder. Always always always there is a choice.

This poor boy should not have died. There is no excuse. This is a travesty.
 
There is a serious flaw in police training when someone with a knife dies while facing off with several police who are armed with batons, tasers, and guns.

"Proportionality" doesn't mean you have to fight a knife with a knife, it means you fight deadly force with deadly force. So taking out a knife-wielding suspect with a gun is GTG.
 
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Very insightful. I agree with you that medication may have resolved this boy's problems. There's some pretty powerful psychotropic drugs out there that might have made a difference in this young boy's life. Sometimes, though, parents don't like to drug their children. I think that's an ongoing problem in some cases. I guess we'll never know what really went on here.

I think what's lacking even more is support for the parents to understand their children and learn how to cope with and respond to their troubled children when they're experiencing extreme issues.

Sounds like she was at a loss and didn't know what to do - which is the plight of many parents (autistic children or not) . . . there's plenty of 'what to do' books for when they're a baby or 5 - but once they get into teens, and if they ahve issues - there's nothing.

But yet parents are expected to keep their kids under control anyway - regardless. . . . you know: how was she suppose to know what to do?
 
I'm not going to condemn the cop, but it seems to me that they could have done more to take the kid down without shooting him. You've got five cops there, right? How about one guy tazes the kid while the other four keep their weapons trained on him? Just sayin'.
 
I'm not going to condemn the cop, but it seems to me that they could have done more to take the kid down without shooting him. You've got five cops there, right? How about one guy tazes the kid while the other four keep their weapons trained on him? Just sayin'.

And then what?

Throw him in juvey - and then what?

Keep him there?

Then what?

What was missing was understanding and REAL intervention and maybe some theraputic help - a lack of this is what led to these situations happening - and happening again - and happening again: no one had any other answers to the problems and instead only responded when things escallated out of control.
 
And then what?

Throw him in juvey - and then what?

Keep him there?

Then what?

What was missing was understanding and REAL intervention and maybe some theraputic help - a lack of this is what led to these situations happening - and happening again - and happening again: no one had any other answers to the problems and instead only responded when things escallated out of control.

Yes, then it would have been a good idea to get him and the family some therapy and/or counseling. Not really an option now ... except maybe grief counseling.
 
First, officers have an absolute right to meet deadly force with deadly force so I cannot fault them for shooting when an officer had been injured and the young man was still advancing.

Who's fault is it? I'm with Aunt Spiker. This young man had clearly demonstrated the need to be in a more protective environment - one where there was no chance of him getting a knife to use as a weapon and where he could be kept from hurting others. There are a variety of possible reasons why the young man was not in such an environment - none available, he did not qualify due to insurance requirements or parents couldn't bear to put in an institutional setting. Had he been in such an environment, he would still be alive.

Very sad news item. My prayers for the family and the officers.
 
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