Transit Cop Fired After Beating Up Autistic Minnesota Teen He Suspected Of Drug Use
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A transit police officer who was accused of attacking a teenager who has autism has been fired.
The mother of 17-year-old Marcus Abrams said the boy was standing Aug. 31 near the tracks at a light rail station in St. Paul when police approached him, reported KARE-TV.
The officers, identified as Peter Buzicky and Richard Wegner, approached Abrams and some friends after one of the boys briefly stepped on the light rail tracks.
Abrams, who has Asperger’s syndrome and wears specially magnified glasses because he is legally blind, was wearing headphones and couldn’t hear Wegner’s order to place his hands behind his back.
Police suspected Abrams, who was returning home with friends after working at the Minnesota State Fair, was intoxicated or using drugs.
Wegner grabbed his wrist and the teen backed up, so the officer grabbed the boy by his vest.
“He was able to ? his left hand by his left ear while looking right at me telling me not to touch him,” Wegner wrote in his report.
The boy’s mother said his autism, along with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and “touch-sensory issues,” makes Abrams extremely sensitive about his personal space.
Wegner said he used a “leg sweep takedown” to drop Abrams to the floor and then placed him in a neck restraint after the boy tried to hit and kick officers.
“One grabbed my arm and the other one grabbed my wrist and I told them to get off me — I did nothing wrong,” Abrams told the TV station. “They just slammed me right on the ground. I tried to get them off me and (one officer had his) whole body on my whole face and I couldn’t breathe.”
A bystander who recorded video of the encounter can be heard telling police that Abrams was suffering a seizure as they physically restrained him.
The boy’s mother said he actually had two seizures during the incident and was hospitalized afterward, but she said officers should have realized her son suffered from a mental disability.
“Just by talking to him they should have known that something in his mind was not right,” Maria Caldwell said.
A Metro Transit spokesman said the incident, which sparked protests by the NAACP and the Black Lives Matter movement, had prompted special classes for transit officers to identify and properly interact with people living with a mental illness.
Wegner was fired over the weekend, after Metro Transit said he had failed his probationary period, which began in March.
He had been a part-time transit officer since 1993 and hired full-time earlier this year.
Civil service rules allow officers to be “summarily dismissed” during their first year.
Comments
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? the pigs
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Why the ? are they even touching him? Jesus Christ this ? me off
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This had to be his fault or Gods fault. This ? should have been born without autism.
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This had to be his fault or Gods fault. This ? should have been born without autism.
Bruh
I wouldn't be shocked if somebody don't say and mean this. -
? fired, they need to be CHARGED w/ assault. If I run up on a random person and beat the ? out them I go to jail. Bruh wtf is wrong with these pigs
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blackamerica wrote: »? fired, they need to be CHARGED w/ assault. If I run up on a random person and beat the ? out them I go to jail. Bruh wtf is wrong with these pigs
Most if not all are anti-social weirdos who barely graduated high school. These are the perfect people to train and command to do whatever it is you tell them too. It wouldn't be that bad if, they didn't have guns. At least, without guns it would level the playing field.
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I Got An Autistic 19 Yr Old Nephew...I WIsh A Pig WOULD Place Hands On That Poor Child
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^ Why would you wish for that?
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this is very upsetting to me. my nephew has mild autism. he is in his 20s. he can communicate and he did graduate high school. he was years behind and it took a lot of work but he did it! he has held the same job for the last 3 years. he gets on his skateboard and rides to the bus stop and catches the bus to work. if its bad weather he will call someone for a ride. you can tell when u see him that he is a lil off. some may think he is high or ? cuz he will be rapping to himself and dancing (he be rockin too lol). we worry about him but we are proud...so so very proud of all he has been able to do. its sad that this child is much like my nephew and able to hold a job and move on his own but would be hurt by a police and all that happens is he is fired.
its bad enough that we have to worry about regular folk taking advantage of our loved ones. its like 2 strikes against these kids when dealing with the police. they are black males with mental handicaps so they process info slower. sadly it can be a recipe for disaster and all that happens is a cop gets fired. -
when i was in college i used to work in the mall. there was this high school guy who used to come in our store and he was autistic. he never came in alone. he always had his brother and/or sister with him. dude was extremely nice and affable. dude was extremely good with math to. his brother told us that the first time we met him. you could just make up some crazy ? and he could solve it instantly. some ? like (1,695,813 * 835,419) squared +(14.3/5474)cos - (6448+94558+4376) = ? dude could solve that ? in 5 secs. we would pull out a calculator and he was always right. ? was amazing. well...........
a few weeks later he came in the store again. this time with his sister and brother. him and his brother came in my section and we started talking. the guy was a great person but it was clear that he had an issue. so we are talking about shoes and i was helping him get what he wanted. in the process of doing that the math thing came up again. so we went through it again. somebody went and got the calculator and we just started throwing numbers at him and he nailed it again. ? was awesome. by this time his sister came around. the sister checked my ass. she just busted out loud like "who the hell are you and why are you talking to my brother?" i was caught off guard but i understood what she was doing. i told her i worked in the store and i was helping him with his order. and she just started grilling me with question after question. i kept it cool and answered everything calmly. by this time the brother had come back and told the sister that i was cool and i wasnt doing anything. the sister calmed down and apologized to me but i told her there was no need to apologize. she told me that she was very protective of her brother b/c people recognized that he was mentally slow and would try to take advantage of him. i told her that all the clothes and shoes that i had pulled were things that he and his brother had chosen. the brother verified it so everything was cool. she apologized again and i told her again there was no need to apologize. i thanked her for doing such a great job watching out for her brother.
she told me that people in his high school would take advantage of him. people he didnt even know would walk up to him and ask him for money. no matter what he had in his pocket he would take it out and give it to them. people found out about that and they took advantage of it. he would do anything anyone asked of him and thats why his siblings were always with him in public. they never let him go around strangers without one of them b/c people would either make fun of him or take advantage of him. but anyone who would do that is the ultimate pos. it was obvious that the dude had mental issues. just the mere fact that he was so nice and affable was proof that he had issues.
its sad that something so obvious can be missed by a trained police officer. its sad that someone who is paid to know better chooses not to. and not only did that ? not recognize that this kid had issues but he took it to the next level brutalized him. what a pos. that pig needs to be thrown under the jail for what he did. pos is an embarrassment to humanity. ? him and all pigs like him. -
They don't see the humanity in you as familiar, so they don't consider the different possible aspects of your humanity outside of the stereotypes they're ingrained with.
Black + not acting compliant = drugs or resisting... so force compliance to control the situation of the (now deemed) criminal.
