RIP Jawara Henry and Visit The Future For Autism: Choke Holds, Restraints, Death
By Kim Stagliano
Last December, Jawara Henry, an adult with autism, was strangled to death in a "hold" used incorrectly by a psychiatric facility supervisor who has just been charged with criminally negligent homicide. I can only imagine how his family feels.
Get ready America - and the world. As the plethora of children born in the 1990s catapults toward adulthood and out of the relative safety of school systems into the state mental health and disability system, this tragic story of death by caregiver will become all too common. I have watched my own daughters grow into a young women of 16 and 15 (and 10.) We are fortunate that biomed and behavioral work has tamped down serious behaviors. Some of their male peers have frightening, yes I said frightening, behaviors that are part of their autism - their untreated, unchecked, unresearched, misunderstood autism. These are not criminally violet boys and men. They have autism. While the nimrods up the street from me at Yale spend millions on eye gaze studies and genetics models and MRI differences, boys are turning into MEN before our eyes. Girls into women. Barely tolerable behavior at 5, like biting, becomes threatening at 15 and then the target of police action and or phsyical abuse at 25 in the hands of a $12 an hour aide, or in this case a "supervisor."
I don't think any provider should have to submit to violence from a patient or client. Don't get me wrong. Safety for everyone is important. There isn't enough training, staffing or support for the looming epidemic. And current financial woes coupled with the less government mantra doesn't bode well for the special needs community. In CT, the respite houses are closing in September. That means families who counted on 4 days of relief a month will now have nothing. How long before tragedy strikes? Few of us could afford to pay staff for a twenty four hour day.
But until the research community and the dingdongs who fund them step up and admit epidemic catastrophe is here and it's called aggressive autism, I see precious little help in terms of actual treatment beyond the psych drugs that have already proven themselves to be an epic fail for so many.
Read the update on Jawar Henry's death by Doug Auer in the New York Post
A supervisor for disabled adults at a Staten Island mental health facility was charged today with criminally negligent homicide after his wrongful restraint of an autistic patient led to the man’s death, authorities said.
Erik Stanley, 37, allegedly applied excessive pressure to the neck and torso of Jawara Henry, 27, during a Dec. 4 incident inside the Multiple Disabilities Unit on the grounds of the South Beach Psychiatric Center on Sea View Avenue.
Stanley did not follow protocol or use proper techniques while trying to subdue an enraged Henry, who had bitten several staff members and other patients during an aggressive outburst, an eight-month investigation by DA Daniel Donovan’s office uncovered.
Stanley placed Henry in a “chokehold” and forced him onto his stomach, a source said. He then got on top of the struggling patient as he was lying face-down, the source added.
Henry’s death was deemed a homicide due to asphyxia by neck and chest compression, the medical examiner ruled.
Stanley pleaded not guilty during his arraignment earlier today in state Supreme Court in St. George and was released without bail.
Kim Stagliano is Managing Editor of Age of Autism. Her book from Skyhorse Publishing, All I Can Handle I'm No Mother Teresa; A Life Raising Three Daughters with Autism is available now. Visit her website at Kim Stagliano.
I can’t stand anyone who is “thankful” for the existence of psych wards or public schools, no matter how violent this poor boy was. I don’t know a single COMPLETELY HOMESCHOOLED, COMPLETELY UNVACCINATED kid or teen who rages attacks or bites people or is incarcerated in a psych ward.
Is foreign and animal DNA in vaccines linked to violent and animalistic behaviors, along with all the aluminum, formaldehyde, mercury, graphene oxide, luciferase, etc?
When will Christ return and abolish the global beast of Pharma?
Posted by: Coral | February 13, 2022 at 05:51 PM
Media scholar you are going off the deep end here my friend.
So check yourself
--------------------------------------
OK..."Raise your hand if you've reached the conclusion that doctors are mentally unstable, skirt-chasing idiots."
You can't see my hand. They're full.
Posted by: Media Scholar | August 08, 2011 at 04:20 AM
VACCINES CAUSE AUTISM
Media Scholar my last comment was "all in the family" as I consider us all family and I am a very big fan of yours.
"...We shall pay them on the beaches, we shall pay them at their pools, we shall pay them during their trans-Atlantic flights and pay them at their trade conferences, we shall pay them in the most luxurious ways we know how to 'til the jack flows out of their nostrils; we shall never surrender,"
However If I was to be out of line with a comment I would expect you to pull me in as well and I would take it that way.
VACCINES CAUSE AUTISM
Posted by: WILLIE | August 07, 2011 at 08:33 PM
VACCINES CAUSE AUTISM
Media scholar you are going off the deep end here my friend. I say this to you with the understanding that you are hurt over your child(s) however you must be more circumspect with your characterization of the entire medical profession.
I am a surgeon and I am married and have children 1 with autism and I am mad as hell about it and read about it almost everyday and think about everyday. I give no quarter to the pediatricians none, because they are the ones charged with your childs health and gave your children the vaccines.
I am also critical of the psychiatric community, however this travesty of health care could never happen in Orthopedics as there are simply too many lions walking around and when they let these big cats out of the bag they take no prisoners none. Believe me everybody is talking about it and research from multiple disciplines are now looking at the complications of their subspecialties associated with Autism
So if you want to rag on them, sue them, characterize them as inept and uninformed paid for whores go ahead I am with you and I have done so to them and anyone else that administers vaccines in writing and face to face.
However do not attempt to paint us all with that same broad brush of incompetence and irresponsibility. I am very mentally tough, stable and focused and I met my wife in the OR and I have not deviated and have no plans to do so.
So check yourself
VACCINES CAUSE AUTISM
Posted by: WILLIE | August 07, 2011 at 08:15 PM
This is a heart-breaking story.My deep sympathy to the family. Care-givers,Support-workers,
Police,Social workers need much better training,preparation
and understanding of autism and also how to deal with violent behaviour in a non-violent way.Staying calm,having
more staff and support and building a "continuity of care"
with the same group of care providers-who really know the
autistic person/child/adult.How we treat the weakest members of the society is a reflection of who we are as humans.My heart and stomach aches with pain reading this story.
Posted by: oneVoice | August 06, 2011 at 05:46 PM
One thing I think would be really helpful is if one of the autism/biomed magazines (Autism Science Digest?) could put together all in one issue something like a consortium or compilation of articles by various biomed practitioners on the medical causes and treatments for aggression in autism.
As an autism mom of a (sometimes) aggressive child, I know there are quite a number of medical issues that lead to aggressive behavior/outbursts, and if all of this info was available in one unit/magazine/booklet, parents could more easily look into the possible causes for their child's aggression and the possible treatments available.
In so many of these cases, the problem doesn't become fully apparent until adolescence and by that time, most parents are already too financially tapped out to seek out specialists. They tend to be 'stuck' with a mainstream physician or psychiatrist who will only prescribe drugs which, as Kim points out, are often an epic fail for these kids. If there was a publication by autism biomed docs that parents could bring to a regular doctor, describing the various lab testing that could be done to determine the cause and treatment of aggression, I think this would be very helpful and so much more healthy than the limited options we have available now.
Posted by: Donna L. | August 06, 2011 at 03:22 PM
Many of us parents know from very personal experience that the world is not prepared for the autism generation. There is no more absolute proof that all this isn't just "better diagnosing."
Look at the stories about people who deal with the public having to get "autism training."
Kim is absolutely right about the scary future in store for our children--regardless of where they are on the autism spectrum.
See: IN: State Mandates Autism Training For First Responders http://www.theindychannel.com/news/28769004/detail.html
It's now mandatory for first responders to receive autism training so they will know how to interpret an autistic child's behavior in the event of an emergency.
SEE: Washington Post: NoVa police learning to deal with rapid rise in autism
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-state-of-nova/post/nova-police-learning-to-deal-with-rapid-rise-in-autism/2011/04/15/AFkONkeE_blog.html
Authorities estimate that one in 110 babies is born with autism, which manifests itself differently in each person. Some are mute. Some are obsessive. Some are savants. There are 2,200 autistic students in the Fairfax schools alone, and 12,000 in Virginia.
And failing to recognize autism, for a cop in the heat of the moment, can turn out badly.
Everyone in the classroom at the Fairfax County Criminal Justice Academy was aware of the recent incident in Stafford County, in which a 19-year-old autistic man did not promptly give a response when an officer asked his name. The officer tried to arrest him, the man fought back, and a jury last month convicted him of assault and recommended a sentence of 10 1/2 years in prison.
In Los Angeles, officers have shot and killed two autistic men in recent years, including one last year who did not take his hands out of his pockets.
SEE: In Va. assault case, anxious parents recognize 'dark side of autism' http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/12/AR2011031205472.html?nav=emailpage
When a Stafford County jury this month found an autistic teenager guilty of assaulting a law enforcement officer and recommended that he spend 101/2 years in prison, a woman in the second row sobbed.
The cause of autism - a complex developmental disability that affects a person's ability to communicate and interact with others - remains the subject of heated debate. What's not in dispute is the soaring number of children found to have the disorder. In 1985, autism had been diagnosed in one out of 2,500 people in the United States; now the rate is one in 110.
Champion said parents are just beginning to acknowledge what she calls the "dark side of autism," their children's capacity for aggression when they are frustrated, angry or overstimulated. Her son recently hit his attendant and attacked his father in front of a movie theater. Other parents describe scary episodes of biting, kicking and hitting.
The autistic children everywhere are the most misunderstand minority imaginable. For years, the media made references to "Rainman" when they reported about autism. Now, the most common description runs something like this: "a lack of communication skills and an inability at social interaction." That hardly prepares anyone for a young adult having a complete meltdown. Even though officials have tried to pretend autism wasn't really anything new--we're always had kids like this everywhere, we just didn't call it autism, seeing an out-of-control person with autism is scary. As a society, we've never had people everywhere with such potential for doing harm to themselves and to others. We have to start asking what's happening to our children. If we don't, I fear for the future image of autism. Soon there will be more and more stories about the police having to deal with autistic young adults. There'll be people dying and people being arrested, convicted, and sentenced for their autistic behavior. Pretty soon the word "autistic" will come to mean someone who's dangerous and likely to hurt someone.
These stories about the police dealing with autism don't ask obvious: WHY IS THERE THIS NEW DISABILITY THAT NO ONE IS PREPARED TO HANDLE? WILL WE JUST CONTINUE TO SEE MORE AND MORE STORIES LIKE THIS WITHOUT EVER ONCE ASKING WHY THIS IS HAPPENING?
Anne Dachel
Posted by: Anne McElroy Dachel | August 06, 2011 at 02:25 PM
A proper socialistic, humanitarian society would take care of everyone instead of rewarding a failed medical model and corporate bosses with more money, power and resources than anyone could ever earn or need. And, yes, some doctors are mentally unstable, skirt chasing idiots while many other doctors are not. What we have is not a society that values everyone; but lies to itself about its values (not so much anymore) while avoiding actually using resources to enrich peoples' lives to where they actually can function well and thrive. It is exploitative from the very lowly paid and poorly trained "supervisor" and unfortunate mistreated patient to the families that have to rely upon this system. Someone(s) somewhere are calling the shots and reaping the wealth of this arrangement and they are not socialist humanitarians at all!
Posted by: Peggy | August 06, 2011 at 01:19 PM
No arrest was made at the time of his death, but Donovan's office opened an eight-month investigation that led to Stanley's indictment Wednesday.
"I'm happy that somebody's going to pay for my son's death," said Henry's mother, Sharon Rowe, 52. She said she saw signs prior to Henry's death that he was being abused.
Rowe said the facility's staff always had an excuse when Henry was injured, including once when he suffered a burn to his knee and a cut to his forehead.
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Another classic example to remind us nobody is going to take care of your kid like you.
Coupled with the story of the Maryland woman who blew her kid away because he didn't live up to her expectations of what she thought he should be, this panic-inducing crap is useless because it doesn't affect parents who already know you can expect zippo, zilch, nada from a socialistic society too busy creating busy work for a medical industrial complex to worry about what happens next.
Secular humanism and other socialist dogma have all the answers to all the problems. Don't they?
Raise your hand if you've reached the conclusion that doctors are mentally unstable, skirt-chasing idiots.
Stay healthy, my friends.
Posted by: Media Scholar | August 06, 2011 at 10:22 AM