Boston, MA – The Ruderman Family Foundation, a national leader in disability inclusion, reiterates its call for police officers to receive better training when interacting with people with disabilities, after a 29-year-old deaf man was shot and killed by a North Carolina State Trooper last Thursday in northeast Charlotte.
“The growing unaddressed problem with policing across the United States is the lack of training police receive in how to interact with people with disabilities in high stress encounters,” said Jay Ruderman, President of the Ruderman Family Foundation “People with disabilities will be safer the more the police are properly trained in this regard, and it needs to happen now before more tragedies occur.”
Last Thursday, Daniel Harris, who is deaf, was fatally shot by an officer after an attempted traffic stop for speeding turned into a pursuit, per reports. Allegedly, an ‘encounter’ took place outside of the vehicles in front of the victims’ home and ended with Harris killed just steps away from his house.
WCCB Charlotte reported that the officer claimed Harris advanced at him, which caused him to fire. Reports from witnesses have suggested that Harris may have been attempting to use sign language with the officer before things turned deadly.
“Whether a person is deaf, autistic or has a chronic health problem, these disabilities are often not understood by police officers when encountering them on the streets,” added Ruderman.
The Ruderman White Paper on Media Coverage of Law Enforcement Use of Force and Disability released last March found that half of all recent high profile police-related killings in the United States are people with disabilities.
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