What happened next that evening in May 2021 is the basis for a lawsuit by the mother alleging that Burlington police used excessive force and discriminated against her unarmed son, who is Black and has behavioral and intellectual disabilities.
After he failed to hand over the last of the stolen e-cigarettes, two officers physically forced him to do so, then Cathy Austrian’s son was handcuffed and pinned to the ground as he screamed and struggled, according to a civil lawsuit filed Tuesday and police body-camera video shared with The Associated Press by the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont.
The teen eventually was injected with a ketamine, a sedative, then taken to a hospital, according to the lawsuit and video.
This is a minor problem compared to the fucking forced ketamin injections but can we please use more words to describe these types of issues. Like, specific ones. “Behavioral issues and intellectual disabilities” has also been used to describe the kid that almost beat a teacher to death for saying he shouldn’t have his Nintendo in school and the flying guy that tried to kill the judge. If there is no difference between how we describe them and this kid, we are just reinventing calling people retarded in increasingly elaborate ways.
I see your point, but that is a bigger can of worms than I think you are expecting. There are dozens of genetic or congenital disorders that can lead to intellectual disabilities and hundreds of acquired ones; all of which result in a range of severity. Also, “intellectual disabilities” and “behavioral problems” are very large buckets of different manifestations. In order to differentiate in the way that you are asking for, they would need to report exact diagnoses and give a detailed description of the individual to differentiate them, and even then, there would need to be a lot of context and clarification if they are to avoid misinterpretation or misunderstanding of any terms or descriptions used.
I’m not saying it’s easy. When I say specific I just mean more specific than the huge bucket we currently have. Maybe 5 buckets so that this kid doesn’t need to share a bucket with the Nintendo kid i mentioned.
Describing specific issues would violate their right to privacy.
I’m sure there is some middle ground we can find. His mother is named in the article and his actions were explained in depth so I don’t see a problem with being a bit more specific with what caused the behaviour. Especially when the phrase is also used to describe quite violent people.
I have to wonder why you want a clearer picture of what the boy was suffering from, 'cause from my vantage point it seems it’s only to satisfy your own curiosity rather than solve a larger issue.
Imo it’s none of our business what his diagnoses was as he was the victim here.