Police Encounters With the Mentally Retarded

It is surely not enough to lament the tragic encounter between the police and the mentally retarded youth, Guido Rodriguez. Clearly we must do all in our power to see that this does not happen again.

Other communities, such as Tucson, Ariz., have set up mandatory educational classes for their police officers so that they can be sensitized to the behavior of the mentally handicapped and work closely with the social workers and associations for the handicapped in the community.

There have been countless incidents across the country where the mentally retarded, and indeed, the mentally ill, have been shot and maimed or even killed, merely because they ran away when they were told to halt. Deafness is often an additional handicap and police officers need to be reminded of all these possibilities.

It is too late to repair the pain and physical damage to this retarded youth, but how can we live with ourselves if we don’t act now to set up mandatory sensitivity training courses for our police officers? Why make them bear the burden of guilt because we fail to educate them in this very important area of civilian life?

In my experience, in working for Alternatives to Prison for the mentally handicapped, I have had police officers tell me vehemently, that, “We just don’t have the training! We would be glad to be able to recognize these people, but even when we do recognize them we often don’t know what to do with them!”

This is clearly a job for the community, when do we start?

SYLVIA EASTON

Irvine