Post by PopeGhostlyWeasel on Oct 15, 2004 21:23:32 GMT -5
Hmm... can't figure out how to get hyperlinks to work on the board... URLs are in parenthesis after the words I would have used as the link text.
This ( www.10tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2422387 ) has me so pissed off I can barely type. Had it been a "normal" little kid who'd drowned under those circumstances, say, at a boarding school or daycare or something, this'd be all over the media, and there'd likely be a murder or negligent homicide investigation going on. Instead, a few local news sources have reported on it, and the adult responsable is "on leave". Even if he loses his job, he's not likely to be charged with anything, as it's an "accident".
There's two things that really don't fit in this story... the first is the whole drowning in the bathtub thing... no matter how autistic Kasey was, he would still have the basic reflexes to try to get to air if he could. But, let's give the group home the benefit of the doubt for a moment and assume he really did accidentally drown... oops, it was still their job to take care of the kid and make sure things like that didn't happen in the first place. And then there's the knocked over dresser. Either it was knocked over in a struggle, or Kasey was fairly worked up about something. Here's a point that the person responsable for supervising Kasey should have known... if a severely autistic person is in a mental state where they are knocking down furniture DON'T go and fucking leave him unsupervised for several hours.
I know it might sound silly to be suspecting murder when it could be "just" neglegence, but given some of the shit that goes on in some facilities for autistics, it's entirely possible that Kasey was murdered. I have the good fortune to fall high enough functionality-wise on the autistic spectrum to have never been in a facility of this sort, but several of my more severely autistic/aspie friends have been in these places, and the stories they have to tell about it are utterly horrible. I'll not breach my friends' privacy by sharing their stories without their permission, but here ( www.autistics.org/library/angry.html ) is somebody's publicly-posted rant with some experiences that are of the same type as what some of my friends endured. Here ( www.neurodiversity.com/murder.html ) are some more examples of the shit that goes on in some of these places, and other inhumane "treatments" for autistic spectrum disorders.
So, do the people behind this shit get punished the same as they would if they had done it to a non-autistic child? The answer ( web.archive.org/web/20030208034638/http://www.geocities.com/growingjoel/murder.html ) is usually no. I find it pretty fucking ironic that a society where people are out protesting in front of abortion clinics is willing to tacitly condone the blatant abuse and even murder of other children simply because they are autistic.
One thing I find utterly mind-blowing is that there are still other children in the facility where Kasey died. Their own PARENTS don't appear to care enough to get them out of a facility where one of the peers died of what was at the very least plainly unjustifiable neglect. Hmm... maybe they just want to keep their "problem" hidden away at some facility where the neighbors won't see "it".
(Bias disclaimer: I have Asperger's syndrome, which is a form of high-functioning autism. I also have several aspie/autistic friends, at various levels of "functionality" (I hate that word, but I don't know a better one to use). Having heard from them some of the utter SHIT that they have had to endure in the name of "treating" their autism, and having seen the physical and emotional scars that this has left some of them with has made this a VERY important issue to me.)
This ( www.10tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2422387 ) has me so pissed off I can barely type. Had it been a "normal" little kid who'd drowned under those circumstances, say, at a boarding school or daycare or something, this'd be all over the media, and there'd likely be a murder or negligent homicide investigation going on. Instead, a few local news sources have reported on it, and the adult responsable is "on leave". Even if he loses his job, he's not likely to be charged with anything, as it's an "accident".
There's two things that really don't fit in this story... the first is the whole drowning in the bathtub thing... no matter how autistic Kasey was, he would still have the basic reflexes to try to get to air if he could. But, let's give the group home the benefit of the doubt for a moment and assume he really did accidentally drown... oops, it was still their job to take care of the kid and make sure things like that didn't happen in the first place. And then there's the knocked over dresser. Either it was knocked over in a struggle, or Kasey was fairly worked up about something. Here's a point that the person responsable for supervising Kasey should have known... if a severely autistic person is in a mental state where they are knocking down furniture DON'T go and fucking leave him unsupervised for several hours.
I know it might sound silly to be suspecting murder when it could be "just" neglegence, but given some of the shit that goes on in some facilities for autistics, it's entirely possible that Kasey was murdered. I have the good fortune to fall high enough functionality-wise on the autistic spectrum to have never been in a facility of this sort, but several of my more severely autistic/aspie friends have been in these places, and the stories they have to tell about it are utterly horrible. I'll not breach my friends' privacy by sharing their stories without their permission, but here ( www.autistics.org/library/angry.html ) is somebody's publicly-posted rant with some experiences that are of the same type as what some of my friends endured. Here ( www.neurodiversity.com/murder.html ) are some more examples of the shit that goes on in some of these places, and other inhumane "treatments" for autistic spectrum disorders.
So, do the people behind this shit get punished the same as they would if they had done it to a non-autistic child? The answer ( web.archive.org/web/20030208034638/http://www.geocities.com/growingjoel/murder.html ) is usually no. I find it pretty fucking ironic that a society where people are out protesting in front of abortion clinics is willing to tacitly condone the blatant abuse and even murder of other children simply because they are autistic.
One thing I find utterly mind-blowing is that there are still other children in the facility where Kasey died. Their own PARENTS don't appear to care enough to get them out of a facility where one of the peers died of what was at the very least plainly unjustifiable neglect. Hmm... maybe they just want to keep their "problem" hidden away at some facility where the neighbors won't see "it".
(Bias disclaimer: I have Asperger's syndrome, which is a form of high-functioning autism. I also have several aspie/autistic friends, at various levels of "functionality" (I hate that word, but I don't know a better one to use). Having heard from them some of the utter SHIT that they have had to endure in the name of "treating" their autism, and having seen the physical and emotional scars that this has left some of them with has made this a VERY important issue to me.)
