Better police training: learning to interact with people living with intellectual or developmental disabilities.

• Author: Pollack, Harold
• Position: Special Report on Mental Health

On January 12, 2013, Robert Ethan Saylor, a twenty-six-year-old man living with Down syndrome, went to see Zero Dark Thirty at a local theater in Frederick County, Maryland. He was accompanied by his attendant, Mary Crosby. When the movie ended, Crosby asked him if he was ready to go home. Saylor became angry, and Crosby called Saylor's mother for advice on managing the situation. Saylor's mother suggested that Crosby go get the car to give her son an opportunity to calm down.

While Crosby was gone, Saylor decided to go back inside the theater. He sat down in his original seat to watch Zero Dark Thirty a second time. Customers aren't supposed to do this, and he was asked to leave. Against Crosby's advice, a theater manager called three off-duty sheriff's deputies who were working security. Things got loud, and then physical as they grabbed the 300-pound Saylor and tried to drag him out. Saylor ended up on the ground in cuffs. He suffered a fractured larynx, and died. The Baltimore Chief Medical Examiner's Office ruled his death a homicide as a result of positional asphyxia.

The officers were never indicted. I believe that was the right call. I doubt these three officers had any desire to hurt Mr. Saylor, let alone to cause his death. That is precisely what makes such cases instructive and frightening. Indeed, the deputies' legal defense was that they had followed their training in their steady escalation of force.

Saylor didn't respond to the deputies' instructions in the way they wanted or expected and was clearly angry and frustrated, but he was sitting passively in his seat. They dealt with his disruptive and defiant--but non-dangerous--behavior by putting their hands on him when they could have kept their distance and waited for him to calm down or for more-experienced help to arrive. His attendant was available to assist them; his mother was en route. This situation could have been managed without force. Instead, as a judge concluded, Saylor died over a $12 movie ticket.

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In this era of Black Lives Matter, protesters, ordinary citizens, policymakers, and police are trying to find common ground in improving police training and procedures to defuse potentially violent situations of all kinds. Everyone involved in policing also understands that officers require better training, policies, and procedures when they encounter people in behavioral crisis. Many police departments are raising their game to deal with crises...