Unwary, Vulnerable : Disabled--Easy Target for Crimes

Most people would have hung up.

But when the caller became sexually aggressive, the mildly retarded woman lacked the judgment to understand the danger; she let slip her address. The man showed up at the apartment of the woman, who held a part-time job and lived by herself. He raped her.

When he called back two weeks later to apologize, she believed him. He asked her to come to his house so he could say he was sorry in person. She did--and he raped her again.

The young Los Angeles woman, said Dr. Janice Carter, who later counseled her, “knows it was wrong,” but did not know what to do.

Those who work with the disabled say the story is not uncommon: They are disproportionately victims of violence, seemingly precipitated by their very vulnerability.

Viewed as ‘Bad’ Witnesses

Composing more than 10% of the population, the disabled make easy victims, often unable to defend themselves. They are unlikely to report crime. Even if they do, they are viewed as “bad” witnesses and often find that their few avenues of recourse are dead-ends.

In the turbid waters of violence, the actual percentage of disabled people subject to abuse is hard to come by. For instance, the woman who was twice raped was so fearful of not being believed that she never notified authorities, said Carter, a physician at the South Central Regional Center, a state facility that helps the developmentally disabled.

But, slowly and haltingly, things may be improving. Police departments throughout the nation are becoming more attuned to the difficulties of dealing with the disabled, increasing training and, in a few cases, developing special units to assist victims. In California, a commission is currently drafting a proposal on how the state ought to help its disabled population lead better, safer lives.

3 Out of 4 Will Be Victims

Professionals estimate that three out of four disabled people will be victims of physical abuse or sexual molestation sometime in their lives. That’s 15 times greater than assault figures for the general population and more than double the rape statistics for women.

“If you have a room full of disabled people, probably 75% of them have been (or will be) abused,” said Dan Guiney, chief of the crime victims division of the Illinois attorney general’s office.

Guiney called the estimate “a very conservative number.” He said it was the consensus of 200 professionals, including social workers, law enforcement officials, therapists and counselors at a conference last year at the University of Michigan.

“The problem is a lot larger than anyone realizes,” said Nancy Tholen, a member of the California commission studying the travails of the disabled.

Intuitively, those less able to defend themselves--young children, the elderly, the infirm--stand to be easy targets for violence and abuse. But, say those who work with the disabled, no other group is so overlooked by society at large, no other group suffers in as much silence.

The disabled are, said Sherman Oaks clinical psychologist Carol Gill, “the highest risk group for violent crime there is.”

Ernie King often hitchhiked home after classes at San Jose State University, where he was working on a graduate degree in counseling. He liked to talk to people about God, his wife said. To King, who was legally blind and deaf, faith had helped him transcend his limitations: the 38-year-old had two children, had taught school, played golf and ran regularly.

Last June, King was offered a ride by four men in a pickup truck, who severely beat him. Then, according to authorities, they tossed him from the truck, which was traveling about 50 m.p.h. King died.

Three Santa Cruz men have been charged with the killing, the result of a “fun fight,” random violence as sport, a prosecutor said.

The prospect of a person being beaten or attacked just because of a disability does not surprise those who have been targets of at least verbal abuse.

“There’s real anger expressed toward us,” said psychologist Gill, who uses a wheelchair because of childhood polio. “We’re sort of at the bottom of the pecking order.”

“We (society) have a lot of anger and it has to go somewhere and it’s always going to that group that we see as less than human,” she said. “Our very humanity is questioned. We are in some ways the last minority group (that can acceptably be discriminated against).”

Derided as ‘Parasites’

Much of the abuse the disabled suffer is attributed to a society that has little empathy for their special problems. Many disabled people complain of being derided as “beggars” and “social parasites” when they approach people in the course of such mundane activities as asking directions.

Paul Longmore, a historian who lives in Eagle Rock and who has done research into the history of disabilities, said people are assaulted for being “different.”

“Why would they attack a Jewish person, a black person, a gay person?” he asked. “I think it’s a fundamental contempt for people who are different.”

Many people view the disabled as “worthless,” said Sandra Cole, a University of Michigan professor with 20 years of experience working with the handicapped. She said this perception makes the disabled eligible to be violated.

Jack Katz, a UCLA sociologist who recently wrote a book on the psychological “seduction” of crime, said that there’s also a thrill aspect to it.

“Attacking a disabled person shows you’re indifferent to society,” he said. “It’s a way of showing your superiority, I guess.”

‘Culture Unto Itself’

Tom Olin, a special education aide in the San Fernando Valley, said being disabled is “almost a culture unto itself.” And with the trend in recent years being to incorporate the disabled into the general population, an almost inevitable clash occurs.

Mainstreaming “places the burden on the disabled,” he said, by forcing the person into a society that is not prepared to deal with those who are different and often reacts with hostility.

Olin cites the case of a student with muscular dystrophy at a North Hollywood high school. The child was repeatedly harassed, tipped over in his wheelchair several times. His grades plummeted, he became despondent. The student lasted a semester at the school before returning to one for the disabled.

Gill remembers suffering abuse as a child. She recalls an attack by a group of children--spitting at the windows and hurling insults--on her special education school bus.

“That must be how it felt to be black and be on a segregated bus in the South going through a white area,” she said.

The handicapped are beset by a complex set of other problems. They frequently have low self-esteem, are often highly dependent on others, are isolated from society and are ignorant of life apart from their own world. All of which adds up to a group that is easy to abuse and unlikely to do well in the legal system.

Carolyn Eddy Anders, who works for the Los Angeles office of the state Department of Developmental Disabled Services, points to the hierarchical nature of relationships between the handicapped and those around them. To degrees varying with the individual and the handicap, the disabled rely on others, usually one person, to do everything for them from basic hygiene to providing transportation.

Carter said that many of those who work with the disabled expect too much from them and get frustrated--sometimes spurring attacks from their helpers.

Moreover, Anders said, society as a whole sends the disabled a message: “Be good,” meaning “be quiet.”

Officers Get Training

For the disabled, reporting crime is riddled with problems. First are the ones inherent in their handicaps: access to police stations, the availability of materials in Braille and sign language interperters. Their troubles do not end at the police station door.

Asked how the disabled fare in the criminal justice system, Guiney, a Chicago police officer on leave to head a disabled task force, said: “They don’t. The very system that’s supposed to protect them doesn’t.”

To remedy that situation, he said, the Chicago Police Department recently established a senior citizen and disabled unit. In addition, officers receive training on dealing with the disabled.

But even organizations designed to help victims of violent crime often are ill-prepared to deal with the disabled, Guiney said. To that end, Illinois has begun training victim support groups on working with the disabled, he said.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Sam Overton, the coordinator of the California Attorney General’s Commission on the Disabled, said the report’s recommendations, which are due in the spring, likely will include a proposal for law enforcement agencies to begin tracking crimes against the disabled. Overton called the development of such a data base “essential.”

“We just don’t know what the scope of the problem is,” he said.

Overton noted two reasons for optimism.

First, the Newport Beach Police Department has put together an instruction videotape, available by mail, on dealing with the disabled.

Second, the result of legislation last year, the Police Officer Standards and Training Division of the California Justice Department is starting a training program that will instruct officers from throughout the state on dealing with the developmentally disabled.

Locally, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department gives its recruits training in sign language and lectures on working with people with other disabilities, a spokesman said. The Los Angeles Police Department also provides recruits with such training, but neither department has any special unit to deal with crimes against the disabled, nor are such crimes tallied separately.

“A victim is a victim,” LAPD spokesman Fred Nixon said.

On June 3, Candi Roth, a 35-year-old blind musician, was waiting for a bus in Newhall. A man offered her a ride. For 30 minutes, she said, he drove on a winding road before stopping and trying to rape her. She talked him out of it and got him to release her.

After being arrested for another attempted rape, the man was identified by Roth using a “voice lineup,” a tape recording of the suspect’s voice bracketed with other men talking.

Later she identified the man’s car: its fuzzy seat covers, gearshift and the smell and sound of its diesel engine.

The suspect, David Jerry Esington of Canyon Country, pleaded not guilty and the defense contended that Roth misidentified her assailant. “Unfortunately because one is blind they think one is also stupid,” Roth said. Esington was convicted last week of attempted rape.

More often, say disabled advocates, the cases of handicapped victims do not even get to court.

Recently, for example, Orange County prosecutors dismissed sexual abuse charges against a former home-care operator because of attacks on the veracity of their principal witness, a 25-year-old mentally retarded man. The judge found that the witness could not tell fact from fiction and labeled his testimony essentially useless.

A Los Angeles case late last year was especially poignant. Cary Dickenson once spoke so badly that it sounded like his mouth was full, his father said. Friends recall not being able to understand him at first; his diction took some getting used to, they said.

Premature Birth

The 21-year-old man was born three months premature, his 4-pound body ridden with anomalies: an incomplete bowel tract, no roof in his mouth, a bent spine. He was also mentally retarded.

The 5-foot-1, 100-pound man was also universally lauded as “the nicest guy you could meet,” who worked hard to overcome his disabilities. With considerable effort, he was graduated from high school in June. Before that he won a standing ovation from his peers in a lip sync contest.

On Oct. 19, Dickenson’s pummeled and blackened body was found stuffed head first into a trash container at the Santa Fe Springs Public Library.

“Someone couldn’t accept him the way he was,” his father, John Dickenson, said. “That’s the only reason he’s dead.”

Detectives agree, saying that the apparent murder, in which no leads have panned out, could well have been simply because Dickenson was “different.”

It was not the first time Dickenson suffered because of the ease with which he could be victimized. From age 13 to 18, Dickenson was sexually molested by his stepfather in Peoria, Ill. When the local papers covered the criminal trial, Dickenson was greeted at school with jeers of, “Look at the little faggot.”

Classic Scenario

This case illustrates what professionals say is the classic scenario: sexual abuse by a person close to the victim.

Such treatment leaves John Dickenson feeling almost resigned.

“I’ve seen it all my life from people who thought they were prettier, better, tougher,” Dickenson said. “Most of us don’t think about it unless we have a child like Cary. And then we spend a lot of time thinking about it.”

Cary Dickenson’s stepmother, Esther, is angry.

“I can’t believe society can’t understand everyone’s not perfect,” she said. “They’re not handicapped; we’re handicapped. His (Cary’s) mind was where we all once were: thinking everyone was beautiful.”