Blame It On Autism Again - When Will It Stop?

[Sportster]

. . .

 

[onlything]

People want to believe that there is a reason for this kind of actions. Most of the time, they choose the easiest one to blame. A scapegoat.

It's human nature. Unfortunately.

 

[clg114]

I believe a lot of this is the medias fault. They are in competition with each other for viewership and/or readership. Because of the nature of the general public, the more dramatic they make it, the better it is for business. It has gotten to the point where they are more concerned with drama that they are with accuracy.

 

[FreeDiver]

GREAT! just what we need. Especially in Seattle. There's going to be a meeting coming up with the director of adult autism services in Seattle and the last thing we need is this poping up. Talk about bad timing.

 

[Judge]

Rachel Forde, a Snohomish County public defender who appeared with Henckel at his first appearance Wednesday, said Henckel is on the autism spectrum.

I hate to admit it, but I find the simplest explanation to be the most plausible one. In other words, what public defender wouldn't JUMP at the prospect of so quickly deflecting such blame on their client?

Even if at the expense of the autistic community at large. After all, they are sworn to "defend" their client any way they can. And in so many cases the average public defender "has the deck stacked against them".

Not that I'm defending such actions, but it simply doesn't surprise me.

Rachel Forde just took the easy way out. With a deal probably already neatly negotiated under the table with the prosecutor's office.

 

[onlything]

I wonder if some people will think that the poor kid had autism too and just 'one autistic maniac killed another'. I wouldn't be surprised.
People could just clearly communicate, try to understand each other and get along... or rather not, huh?

 

[OkRad]

Wow. So sad! People cannot understand behaviour. The Las Vegas shooter is another example. At first they said it was just baffling. Then, they said he was hiding a serious psychiatric illness!! WTFreak? That is like saying he was hiding a heart attack. If you know anyone or have a serious psychiatric illness, there aint no hiding it. Hid it from family, friends, a girlfriend?? That is serious grasping. They back off from that.

People do things with no explanation. A guy that went to my church got on to an SSRI and for no known reason, even to himself, he stabbed his wife. He has no idea why he did it. In prison, the minister tried to find out what his motive was, and the guy had no idea. I am not against meds, and no one knows it that caused it, but it is all he could point to but still he said he was like in a dream.

She survived, but was very damaged with lung and throat troubles for life.

 

[Aryanna]

They were both autistic? Or was the first mention a mistake?

 

[Gracey]

I don't think it ever will @Sportster.

For a fantastic defence of a guilty client in a court of law, use something that's misunderstood generally and is a spectrum.
All at various levels of functioning to add to the confusion.


A while ago it was the turn of Dissasociative Identity Disorder to be blamed for all that was evil in the world.

Before that it was paranoid schizophrenia's turn.

Folk fear what they don't understand

 

[kay]

To me it sounds like he "confessed" and the defense lawyer is saying because he is autistic that he may have been more susceptible to a coerced false confession. Seems like a possibility, too. Police can be horrible with interrogations.

 

[OrSomething]

Obviously what he did was horrible. And no, autism shouldn't be blamed for it. Most people with autism are perfectly capable of telling right from wrong. Of course, other disorders, like those that affect intellectual ability or perception of reality, can affect one's ability to be held criminally responsible for their actions. But I don't know if that was the case here.

 

[Fohristiwhirl]

The defence lawyer is just working within what the law allows. It's necessary to have lawyers to defend clearly guilty people in order to be as fair as possible, but the system is of course not perfect. While autism doesn't make people do bad things nor is it any kind of excuse for them it can certainly be a major factor in a lot of crimes and therefore shouldn't be ignored in court. I have know people with autism to exclaim loudly (intended as a joke) things about bombs and terrorists on trains and in really inappropriate places. The same lack of understanding for social norms can extend to morals as well. A lot of our moral values as humans are not specifically taught to us per se and some of them can be obscured for the literally minded in parables or idioms. The biggest problem is with the media over reporting crimes where one of the suspects may have autism. They won't publish crimes by NTs but if they have autism the story is like hot cakes to them. Apparently the average reader is interested more by such cases. Ultimately the media are just trying to make money so you can't really blame them since they are from a capatalist country.

 

[Gracey]

That is sort of what I was thinking. I can't help but wonder if a time will come when those on the spectrum will be required to register or something because we will be deemed "possibly dangerous."

That would be a huge can of worms to open. Registers and the like.
Where would it end?

Would all non-ND have to be screened and evaluated just to ensure they weren't a possible future threat or weed out any undisclosed mental illnesses, brain injuries, hormonal imbalances?

Not to mention the massive infringement on one's own right to privacy.

I can't imagine a register happening any time soon (in my humble opinion)

 

[NothingToSeeHere]

It is the defence' job to find every possible reason and excuse to minimise the sentence their client will receive, and autism is a very obvious one that any defender worth their pay check would jump on without hesitation, and their argument is actually quite reasonable. Sure autism is sensationalised in the media, but this is just a lawyer doing their job.

 

[WereBear]

individuals with his disability are easily susceptible to suggestion and authority figures

That is absurd. We get in the most trouble because we stubbornly hang onto our own thoughts and perceptions and refuse to ignore our own reality to "fit in."

 

[Judge]

So far in terms of mental health issues, those conditions which may curtail one's civil liberties continue to be restricted to a question of whether or not one has been adjudicated as a mental defective or been committed to a mental institution.

Personally I don't see such legal benchmarks being expanded with further legislation. Though again, I'm only citing that which can trigger government oversight based on mental health. Other considerations such as violent domestic abuse, sex offenses and felony convictions continue to impact citizens depending on the jurisdiction in question.

But the idea of government curtailing your rights through a mandatory registry simply because one is on the spectrum of autism? Nope, I don't see that happening at least in the US. Unless of course members of Congress cease being trial lawyers and come to Capitol Hill as former members of the media.

 

[hutchie]

I would like to know the percentages of heinous crimes committed by people with the different psych conditions and NT's, I don't think the general population would like that at all. NT's also struggle too, just look at the alcohol trade.

 

[pjcnet]

IF he is guilty (and he is currently innocent as he hasn't been proven guilty at the time of writing), then the first thing I imagine is the following. I could be totally wrong, it is very disturbing and I am sorry to share this possible scenario with you:

Possible scenario: The very young 6 year old autistic child is screaming, shouting and doing many things autistic children often do when they're upset or perhaps even when just playing, the 19 year old Uncle being sensitive to certain noises gets more and more worked up wanting quiet and the noises were particularly sensitive to him. The uncle could have had a sensory overload and shouted back at the child which would have only made the child worse and this would have in turn escalated in a vicious circle making the Uncle's sensory overload worse to the extent that eventually he just couldn't handle it any more. The Uncle's sensory overload could have suddenly turned into complete meltdown and then in an altered mental state he could have done what he thought he had to in order to get the 6 year old to finally "shut up", E.g. hold the child underwater (he may not have even thought this would kill him, but held him under too long before he came to his senses). Afterwards he would have realised what he'd done and would have severely regretted it, he would have almost certainly panicked and then tried to cover up the crime fearing what would happen to him if he was convicted of murder (he would have done this very poorly, not thinking straight in a terrible panic, I can only imagine the terror he would have felt in this dire situation).

I have sat in my flat listening to my neighbour banging about upstairs, it can be very difficult to handle sometimes and I can feel anger towards him even though I have to keep telling myself that he's not really doing anything wrong and it's me that is over sensitive to certain noises. I have had meltdowns where I've felt like going outside, smashing down his door and attacking him, I wouldn't do that and would instead walk away somewhere to calm down (I've never been violent in this situation), but the thought has certainly been there, also perhaps the Uncle thought about walking away and was torn between his responsibility not to leave the young child alone. I'm sorry if this isn't what people on this forum probably want to hear and it's not what I want to conclude either, but IF he did commit the crime, then it could have been at least partially caused by him being on the autistic spectrum.

Update:

I have a further thought. IF my scenario did happen to be close to the truth it would be very difficult for the law to deal with the crime. In one hand the uncle wouldn't truly be an evil person, he would be extremely remorseful and would have mitigating circumstances for committing the crime. On the other hand however the law can't be seen not to apply a severe punishment for killing, especially a child and if the uncle received little punishment then it could be perceived that autistic people aren't always responsible for their actions and could even kill during a meltdown and get away with it in future. In other words the barrier to stop people killing must stay firmly in place and autistic people must realise that even during a severe meltdown they must avoid violence and especially killing at all costs.

If he was unable to handle a young autistic child, then it should also be questioned why he was put in a situation where he was babysitting one. The problem is this case could well make people generally untrustworthy towards autistic people being around children even when the vast majority would be perfectly fine and it's unfair to be prejudice towards people based on what others have done (we are all individuals). The whole affair is a horrible can of worms.

 

[hutchie]

If his Aspergers is that bad, wouldn't it have been so obvious he had problems? To be left alone with a noise machine like a child.