Don't Shoot, I'm Disabled
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 4 October 2018
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Hundreds of people are killed by the police in the US each year. Much of the media attention has been on the race of victims, but there is another disturbing pattern to the deaths. A large number of those killed in interactions with police have a disability, with some research suggesting the figure is as much as half of the total number. Many of the dead had been living with mental illness, learning difficulties or a physical disability and recent incidents include those involving police officers shooting dead people with schizophrenia, autism, Down's Syndrome and deafness. North America Correspondent, Aleem Maqbool dissects some of these cases - reconstructing events, speaking to eye-witnesses and to officers involved in such fatal incidents - to ask why they happen so frequently. What are revealed are some deep-rooted issues concerning not just police culture, but also concerning the attitudes of society as a whole towards the disabled.
Producers: Josephine Casserly and Haley Thomas
(Image: A collection of pictures of Ethan Saylor, a twenty-six year old man with Down Syndrome, who died of asphyxiation after three off-duty deputies restrained him. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thank you for downloading this edition of Assignment from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:04.0 | I'm a Lee McBall and over the last few months I've been traveling around the United States |
| 0:08.6 | to investigate why so many disabled people die in interactions with the police. It's a story I first |
| 0:14.9 | became aware of through a friend of mine with a disability who lives in New Jersey |
| 0:18.6 | and who perceived it to be a problem just from the individual cases she was reading about in the media. |
| 0:24.4 | When we pulled them all together, it was clear that she was right, and here's what we found. |
| 0:30.3 | Just a warning that the content you're about to hear in this podcast is distressing. |
| 0:35.7 | West Milwaukee police? |
| 0:38.4 | There's a young man here who has a psychotic break. |
| 0:41.9 | He's standing naked in the hallway. |
| 0:44.0 | Collin states there's a man standing naked in the hallway, |
| 0:47.6 | thinks he might be having a mental breakdown. |
| 0:50.3 | The man was Adam Trammell, a 22 year old from Milwaukee who had schizophrenia. |
| 0:55.0 | Is he just naked, nothing else, he doesn't have any weapons or anything? |
| 0:59.0 | No, no, no, he doesn't have any weapons. |
| 1:01.0 | Now he just shut the door now. He's saying something about the devil and his brother. |
| 1:07.0 | Moments later, responding to this emergency call from a neighbor, three police officers arrive at his apartment. |
| 1:13.8 | Police department, we need to check on you. |
| 1:20.0 | We want to make sure you're okay. |
| 1:25.0 | You're listening to footage from one of the body cameras worn by the police and what you're about to hear is extremely distressing. |
| 1:32.0 | This is your last chance. we need you to open up, |
| 1:35.0 | otherwise we have to come in. |
... |
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