Hey! I got it! We should require deaf people, and people who have had strokes and can't communicate, to wear special badges on their clothes, indicating their condition so cops won't beat the crap out of them! Maybe something along this line:
Posted on 02/18/2014 7:24:56 AM PST by BenLurkin
HAWTHORNE (CBSLA.com) — Jonathan Meister was retrieving some stuff he was storing at an ex-roommate’s home when he looked up to find several members of the Hawthorne Police Department approaching.
The South Bay man claims officers didn’t give him a chance to explain what he was doing before placing him in handcuffs, beating him and using a stun gun to shock him into submission.
The problem began when police reportedly misunderstood Meister’s attempts to speak in sign language as threatening gestures.
Moreover, officers didn’t realize that when they handcuffed Meister, who is “profoundly deaf” and non-verbal, they took away his ability to communicate.
Now, the architect from Manhattan Beach is suing the city of Hawthorne, its police department and several of its officers for what happened that day.
The incident began on the evening of Feb. 13, 2013, when Meister arranged to get some things his ex-roommate was holding for him on his back porch. Someone saw Meister hauling items, thought it looked suspicious, and called police.
Officers met Meister on the sidewalk, where he “tried to tell them that he was deaf, using gestures to explain that he was there to pick up his stuff, but it didn’t seem like they understood,” Meister’s attorney Anna Rivera said.
The situation deteriorated from there.
Police put Meister in handcuffs and officers say he began struggling.
“If the primary way you communicate is to use your hands, and you’re looking at somebody when you speak, when you go to grab somebody without explaining what’s happening and take that method of communication away from them, Mr. Meister became afraid,” Rivera said.
The suit claims the officers’ response was excessive. The suit alleges police used a stun gun to bring him to the ground and beat him.
He was arrested and taken to the Hawthorne police station, where he communicated in writing.
Police initially charged Meister with assaulting officers but those charges were eventually dropped.
Meister filed his case Wednesday with the Disability Rights Legal Center, suing for compensatory, statutory and punitive damages.
“It’s a civil rights case about officers discriminating against someone just because they have a disability, and that they don’t recognize someone is deaf,” Rivera said.
Hawthorne police provided a copy of the police report showing they recognized Meister was deaf early on and that he tried to resist.
Meister’s hand-written account to police says he didn’t mean to resist.
River says officers should have tried to communicate with Meister using a pen and a piece of paper.
Police released a statement that said, in part: “Officers make every effort to communicate effectively…In almost all cases, it is the person’s behavior and actions who we contact that dictate police response rather than the communication barriers present. That is certainly the case in this specific matter…”
Hawthorne police also say they officers already receive training on handling situations where communication proves difficult.
Years ago on a hot August night I went up to the local watering hole to meet a few friends and watch a late Cubs game. Well one the guys walks in and asks if we had seen any of “those weird kids” next door in the BK parking lot. I looked out the window and saw about 10 kids that were signing! My daughter had a deaf schoolmate and her teacher would send home the ASL sheets so she could learn and of course I would let her
practice on me.I learned a little too!
This story brings me to tears!
Hey! I got it! We should require deaf people, and people who have had strokes and can't communicate, to wear special badges on their clothes, indicating their condition so cops won't beat the crap out of them! Maybe something along this line:
You sure like giving the government power to require certain people to carry signs. You might want to be careful, it's a slippery slope.
Who do I talk to about letting these thugs wear badges, carry guns and use tasers. Better yet, I want their home telephone numbers and e-mail addresses.
My sister was born profoundly deaf and the thought of it just makes want to get on a plane and fly all the way to California to kick some bad-ass cops’ asses!
That ship sailed long ago, My FRiend. I once felt the same way[the police were your friend] In fact, I taught that to my children. I now strongly advise my grandchildren to avoid all contact with the police. One will celebrate more birthdays that way.
Try doing that to a cop now and before you get to the second sign, he will have put so many bullet holes in you that you will look like a piece of Swiss cheese.
Ping
Uh, no you don't idiot. "Sign" is the language that deaf people use. It's up to them to figure out what that sign might be. It's up to them to find sponsors for a PSA to teach the public to recognize said sign. It's V-O-L-U-N-T-A-R-Y.
I had two relatives who died in the Holocaust. Take your f-ing "NAZI" crap and stick it.
Or we could arrest, sue and sentence any and all government employees who think this is acceptable behavior.
” After 9/11 we gave carte blanche to law enforcement to “keep us safe” and spawned all of these steroid-pumped thugs with badges”
I think any stamps of approval were and are still being given by segments of our society that would rather remain oblivious to the need for individual awareness, participation and vigilance in a real war on terror and violent crime and if they’re “giving back to the community” at all, they’re choosing paths of minimal risk and resistance to adversity. They wouldn’t want to be accused of the cardinal PC sin of “racial profiling” and so they say to themselves, “Let the local police and federal law enforcement handle it.”
The "I'm deaf" sign is pretty simple, and it's basically what you mentioned: point to the ear, then to the mouth. . I've known it since I was a kid and I don't know much sign language. It's pretty pathetic that these officers of the law don't even know the most rudimentary things, and they're supposed to be trained to deal with the public? But the report said they knew he was deaf early on, and they still beat him up.
http://theaslproject.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/deaf-sign-language.jpg
I want to start with the point that I was posting to alleviate a tragedy. It was meant in charity, as a way to alleviate suffering that I regarded as needless. I well understand the militarization of police in the United States and the consequences. I don't need instruction in that regard. I have been posting at FR for 14 years. Anyone who held such beliefs as those of which I was accused would not last here long. Any FReeper replying to one of my posts should have the wherewithal to consider how long I've been here. All you had to do was hover your mouse over my handle and the sign-up date would be there.
When I spoke of a “sign” I was not speaking of a batch or placard or tattoo. You see, deaf people “speak” in what is called American Sign Language. The people who communicate with American Sign Language call it “signing,” the gestures they employ are called “signs.” That's why I called it a “sign.”
I was recommending that the hearing-impaired, through their organizations of which there are several, get together and work out a set of gestures, "signs," not just for themselves, but for anyone who cannot speak or hear at the moment. Unfortunately, if one examines the American nature of American Sign Language, one easily recognizes that it is meant to be for conversation purposes, not for emergency purposes. To be able to communicate with gestures at the speed of speech requires fine motor skills. In emergencies, fine motor skills are unavailable. Gestures used in emergencies involve large muscle skills, not fine motor skills, such as American Sign Language requires. Hence, the finger to the mouth for example, is too detailed and too easily missed in emergency circumstances in which it will police officer is legitimately concerned for (and illegitimately obsessed with) their own health and safety. As an example of what I mean, consider the international symbol for choking, something every nurse knows. It's two hands to the throat. That is a large muscle skill, not a fine motor skill. That is the sort of symbol we need to communicate the inability to speak or to hear, such as anyone might experience after an explosion. It needs to be a single gesture, not a series of ASL “words,” such as Red Badger suggested. I suggest no more than four or five such symbols in total, because that is all the public can be reasonably expected to learn.
Over the years, I have noted how the deaf expect others to learn their language. Red Badger offered a sentence equivalent to “I am deaf,” as if such should be considered sufficient. It is absurd. Expecting the public to learn more than a few signs is not going to happen sufficiently to alleviate this kind of emergency misunderstanding.
Accordingly, the value that the deaf could contribute to the rest of society is their sensitivity to the difficulty of designing sign language that works under ALL circumstances including emergencies. I even suggested a means of public education which both exists and would take up such a task: public service advertising. TV stations are required to air PSAs. The air time would be free. There is no excuse for not doing this and I said so, for which I was pilloried.
You the supposed champions of the deaf, completely ignored that possibility, presuming I was on some sort of power trip and attempting to excuse the thugs who perpetrated this assault. You did not seek clarification prior to accusing me. You chose to assume that I was speaking of a badge or symbol. In the absence of evidence, you chose to presume that I was excusing said thugs. You whipped out accusations that I would force deaf people to wear insignia equivalent to Jews in World War II.
Dear God. Two of my family died in that war in concentration camps. How dare you make such an assumption of another FReeper without incontrovertible evidence you did not possess. None of the posters considered that maybe they misunderstood my intent.
We are not going to undo the degree to which police officers are conditioned to defend themselves at the expense of public safety, at least not in the near future. It is an enormous task to get a unionized government agency consisting of at least 2 million law enforcement officers to change anything. That is but one reason I would prefer to dispense with police entirely. I know that officers are conditioned to go off at hair-trigger, and because of that they need for such a SIGN becomes even more urgent.
I'll bet some of you consider yourselves Christians. How was your posting to me an example of Christian love? Once I told you that it was voluntary, how many of you sought reconciliation for your hair-trigger error in judgment? How many apologized for such thoughtless and cruel comments? How did you behave in such a way that your light would shine before men? Here I was, doing what I thought was a charitable thing, integrating all of the aspects of the story, and the understanding that the police are immediately fixable, as a way to alleviate suffering of people deserving kindness and protection. I suggested that the death do it themselves in the tradition of American self-help. And you turned that into an evil and thoughtless power trip.
I thought long and hard about whether I wanted to bother with this post at all. Your posting betrayed an attitude that seeks to shame with superior righteousness. yet it looks to me that the goal is to feel righteous, not to solve the problem. Hence, I will therefore not reply unless there is an apology. Please reconsider your propensities, especially on a forum of conservative fellowship, many who have been here a long time. You should know better.
I just returned from the interior of the Everglades, home of ParcMan, the LEO with a selective fire switch on his rifle, Level IV armor, an average or below IQ, and a sense of superiority worthy of a Nazi. Indeed, the name “Nature Nazi’ was not applied casually.
One must question the deaf community devotion to propagandizing the public regarding the “deaf community”. The advocates/spokespersons for the ‘deaf community’ became quite exercised when cochlear implants were suggested as a technological fix which would free the deaf from needing sign language, etc.
Technical fixes have a far greater success rate than sociological fixes. Carry_Okie was suggesting a technical fix which would need minimal sociological effort and virtually no long term personnel.
Personnel at schools for the deaf, advocates, lawyers, et al - all stand to lose money if the deaf can be mainstreamed with a simple sign or two taught to all in a short time. Most important to this thread is Carry_Okie’s “fix” would be inexpensive and have a high level of success.
What I would appreciate is an explanation of why Carry_Okie was criticized as he was.
I like tech fixes - they work.
Compare a working fix with the probably mythical sociological fix.
Thanks for the reply, Carry.
Not to your fault, but this sign below; which means “I am deaf/ hearing impaired/mute/can't speak. “ -has been around for over a half century. If the dumb-asses in the blue uniforms can't understand that, then maybe they should go work at Walmart, as a greeter. oh, wait, they're expected to know that too. Guess they should just file for a full disability because of ‘roid rage, or PSTD syndrome. ;-)
Peace!
http://theaslproject.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/deaf-sign-language.jpg
I did nothing to apologize for...get over yourself.
I suggested that IN GENERAL it could be prudent for a deaf person to wear Medic-Alert for any number of reasons which have nothing to do with the police. Victim of a crime or accident, random medical event, etc.
I’ve never even once criticized you; merely suggested that anyone who can’t communicate has to take some extra responsibility for themselves. It’s not “fair” but life isn’t fair, and if you get koshed by a thug or hit by a car, it might just be useful info for first responders, let alone police...
As for a sign for it? Waste of time, it’ll only encourage thug cops to be very sure to intentionally damage the hands of anyone they can get away with doing so.
By itself it’s not at all a terrible idea, and would be useful, but it assumes a thug cop cares rather than sees someone they can get away with busting up.
One other thing I forgot in the first post: Even if a cop didn’t intentionally break the hands of a deaf person to silence them, didn’t go out of their way to cuff them for it, whatever...there’s already a pattern of them dragging folks off camera to beat them in peace. Would there be anything stopping a cop from simply denying he saw any such sigh, if he maneuvered the whole situation off-camera?
There’s nothing Nazi-ish about deaf ppl CHOOSING to wear a Medic-Alert bracelet. I know it’s all the rage these days that any sort of call out is considered akin to being made to wear a Star of David, but among other things, I said voluntary and prudent, not required.
The couple came in, both were deaf and unable to speak; they made that simple sign, along with showing me a pen and paper and making a writing motion.
I immediately knew what they meant; only a complete imbecile would not "get" that. But then, these are cops we are talking about. Lazy nitwits, prone to doing very little actual work, and wildly obsessed with the idea that they are being "disrespected." The latter trait has become more and more prevalent in our society in general, as for whatever reason we have lost the concept that one has to "earn" respect...it is not automatically conferred.
I am sick and tired of hearing about the dangers of their job; I grew up on a farm, and traveled hundreds of thousands of miles as a sales rep "on the road." Both of those jobs are more dangerous...and don't come with a fat pension...but you won't hear me whining like a little girl (and I actually AM a girl).
“...wildly obsessed with the idea that they are being “disrespected.” The latter trait has become more and more prevalent in our society in general, as for whatever reason we have lost the concept that one has to “earn” respect...”
-Probably related to steroid abuse, something that’s become prevalent.
“Juicers in blue”
http://www.menshealth.com/health/scandals-cops-and-steroids#.
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