#a Black autistic boy was shot and murdered by the police in the US a few days ago and you come to me w this | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

frtyfour · 4 years ago

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Things that have been happening in the autistic community recently that everyone, allistics included, should know about:

Trigger warning murder and transphobia.

January/November 2019: Matthew Rushin’s accident and wrongful imprisonment case Matthew, a 21-year-old Black autistic college student, was in January 2019 involved in a car accident, which was wrongfully claimed a suicide attempt. He is currently in prison and facing a 10-year sentence, essentially for having an autistic meltdown while being Black. In light of the Black Lives Matter movement, his case has gained public traction. More information can be found here, here and here. Sign the petition here.

May 18th: Chad Gordon killed in a case of mistaken identity Chad, a 27 year-old Black autistic man from Hackney, London, was fatally shot at close range when he opened his door on Monday May 18th. Read more about his tragic murder here.

May 21st: Alejandro Ripley’s murder Alejandro, a 9-year-old autistic, non-speaking boy, was brutally murdered by his own mother in Florida. After having been saved by bystanders the first time his mother pushed him into a canal, he later died in a different canal. According to the mom, “he’s going to be in a better place”. Read more details here.

May 30th: Iyad Al-Khalak’s murder Iyad/Eyad Al-Khalak, a 32-year-old Palestinian autistic man, was shot and killed by Israeli police in Jerusalem. Apologies have been made by the government, but the police officers involved need to be held accountable. Sign the petition here. I have made a post about other actions you can take to demand justice, which you can find here.

June 10th: JJ Vallow (and Tylee Ryan)’s confirmed death Two children, Joshua “JJ” Vallow and Tylee Ryan, had been missing since September, 2019. The family has confirmed the remainders that have been found are indeed JJ and Tylee. JJ was an autistic 7-year-old boy, and Tylee was his 17-year-old sister. More details can be found here, and here.

May/June: Huxley Stauffer’s “rehoming” YouTubers Myka and James Stauffer recently declared to “rehome” their adopted, autistic 4-year-old named Huxley from China. According to them, this was due to “extent of his needs”. Huxley is currently the subject of a police investigation, as his whereabouts are unknown. For more details, see here and here.

J.K. Rowling’s infantalisation of trans autistic people As many of you probably know, J.K. Rowling posted a “response” to the criticism she’s been receiving on June 10th. You can read the post here. With the words: “The UK has experienced a 4400% increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment. Autistic girls are hugely overrepresented in their numbers. [...] ‘I (Lisa Littman) would have been remiss had I not considered social contagion and peer influences as potential factors.’ [...] where she believes that in the realm of transgender identification ‘youth have created particularly insular echo chambers.’ , Rowling has upset the autistic community. Infantalisation is a senstive issue among autistics, as it is a tactic used to undermine our capabilities. If you want to read what trans autistic people have to say about this, search #WeAreNotConfused on Twitter.

Solomon Smith’s experience with police Solomon “Sunny” Smith, a Black autistic man, was walking home, racially profiled and tased, because he couldn’t respond to demands. In the video here you can hear him repeatedly say: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry”. Black autistics are at an extremely high risk to be in contact with the police, and this is an issue that needs to be addressed.

What these recent events confirm is that autistic lives are at risk at an alarming rate. We are treated inhumanely, even by those who should be our caregivers. We are being murdered for existing. Black autistics in particular fear for their lives. They should not be left out of the conversation. So, spread the word: #BlackAutisticLivesMatter, #BlackDisabledLivesMatter!

Our community is overwhelmed. We are scared. Autistic people are generally at a high risk of suicide, and being Black and/or trans on top of that, is dangerous in times like these. Please support us by sharing these stories, signing petitions and most importantly: listen. Check in on your autistic friend, ask them how they’re coping with these events - amidst everything that is going on - and listen to what they might need. Be supportive.

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monsterfucker-lisa-swallows · 5 years ago

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She tried to start a lynch mob using the old white lady trick of “two black men demanded drugs then stole my money and phone” as a cover up for murdering her son. Don’t let this slide, I’m literally begging you. Not this time.

This boy was nonverbal, so when he was heard screaming he couldn’t explain to people that his mom was trying to kill him. They only realized after she took him to another canal to drown him that she’d been trying to kill him the first time. Because you guys don’t listen to us. You don’t believe us. You believe the people who do this to us. We end up dead because many of us don’t have a voice and you won’t raise yours with us. You say “he’s in a better place” instead of making this a better place for him

(Article from 23rd May, 2020)

This happens so often. I’m lucky to be alive because I was abused horrifically by people who were trying to “cure” me. Don’t believe me that this is common?

The Autistic Self-Advocacy Network (an organization I actually support, as opposed to Autism Speaks) reports that “In the past five years, over 600 people with disabilities have been murdered by their parents, relatives or caregivers.”

Earlier this year, an 8-year-old autistic boy was murdered by his father who had sole custody of him. He called the child a “piece of shit” two days before the child died in a freezing New York City garage in the dead of winter. His father said after the death that he’d been through “more stressful things”. They had home video footage of him beating his children.

His name was Thomas Valva

In 2018, a 5-year-old boy with “ fragile X syndrome, pervasive developmental disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, impulse control disorder and dysphasia” was the subject of 11 different complaints to child services because of suspected abuse, but as was true in my case no action was taken. He died of asphyxiation and a drug overdose. “Brayson suffered a broken arm, broken femur and numerous burns and bruises in the years before his death, court records state. Price withdrew Brayson from school a month later. It was October. By November, he was dead.” (Classic abuse tactic, isolating the victim.) When child services investigated her prior to the death, the mother claimed he couldn’t feel pain.

“Prior to his death, Price googled "Risperidone overdose" multiple times, according to the court transcript. Ingalls searched multiple phrases, including "beat child with fragile X abuse, I want to kill my autistic child, painful ways to die (and) most painful torture."

Ingalls told Price via text message that he hated her son, wanted to buy a ticket to see Brayson take his last breath and thought she should "kill him while he is young and do something with your life before he robs you of any chance of ever being happy or being anything other than a stay-at-home retarded caregiver,"”

really indicative of how you see us, guys

His name was Brayson Price

here we have a woman who is anonymous and said she was “overwhelmed and felt totally alone after her child was diagnosed with autism.” (Like cry me a fucking river, Karen.) Pled not guilty by insanity. She googled suicide attempts and mothers who killed autistic children in the 48 hours before she smothered her 3 year old daughter with a Minnie Mouse pillow. She was convinced the child’s form of autism was “more severe” than it was...which...okay are people who cover this story expecting me to believe it would be justified if it WAS more severe?

Her name wasn’t printed, but she’s not forgotten.

Here we have a Tennessee mother covering up her husband’s abuse and murder of her 5-year-old autistic son

His name was Joe Clyde Daniels

Think this is getting depressing? It’s state enforced

Up to 50% of people killed by police have registered disabilities

911 Can Be a Death Sentence for Blacks in a Mental Health Crisis

Last year, a non-verbal autistic man became agitated and shoved an off-duty police officer when in line for samples at Costco in California. His parents tried to apologize and explain, but the police officer fired on them 10 times - killing him and wounding his parents. No charges were pressed.

His name was Kenneth French

We have a manslaughter charge for a cop killing a 6 year old boy? At least he got 40 years for it?

His name was Jeremy Mardis

I don’t know how many times we have to tell you this before you believe us, but our lives are not worthless. Regardless of what “level of functioning” we’re at (which is already a ridiculous metric because I’m apparently considered high functioning even when I barely hold a job), we’re not burdens and we’re not inherently dangerous. People keep saying they’re in a better place now, but that’s just excusing it. Make HERE a better place! Stop letting these news stories slide! Stop spreading thinkpieces by Autism Speaks lamenting over a poor mother who has been burdened with an autistic child and saying she’s so brave to not murder her child! Hell, sometimes you guys make whole documentaries about mothers who murder autistic children SYMPATHIZING with them! And stop calling cops on autistic people having meltdowns, for fuck’s sake!

Autism isn’t something we suffer from, not inherently! We suffer from the trauma of being forced to live in a world where people abuse and kill us for being different! You keep killing us instead of listening to us! Being non-verbal should NEVER be a death sentence!

I made some posters just because I, too, sometimes need a catch phrase. Feel free to make more.

(Image: “Autism isn’t deadly, ableism is. Stop passively condoning the murder of autistic people. Hear us. Believe us.”)

(Image: “Autism shouldn’t be a death sentence. Neurodivergent children have a higher risk of being bullied and abused. Black autistic children are at a higher risk of corporal punishment at school. 50% of the victims of police shootings are neurodivergent. Hear us. Believe us.)

(Image: “Silence shouldn’t = death. Non-Verbal autistic children are routinely abused and killed by parents because nobody can hear the cries for help. Non-verbal autistic adults are shot by police because they’re assumed to be dangerous. Hear Us. Believe us.”)

Something for my non-verbal or selectively verbal peeps out there.

(Image: Non-Verbal but not silent. Some autistic people aren’t capable of verbal communication. This doesn’t make them undeserving of life or respect. Others can communicate with text or sign or are selectively verbal. It’s important to learn how to communicate with an autistic person in their specific way and to not force them to conform to yours. Practice conflict resolution. Be patient. Hear us. Believe us.)

For people like me who can speak, or for any allies who will stand with us but not talk over us:

(Image: I don’t take my voice for granted. I lift my voice for all those who can’t speak for themselves. I see you. I’m with you. I respect you. You deserve to be here. Hear us. Believe us.)

(Image: Vaccines don’t cause autism. I literally don’t know how to tell you that those findings were debunked over 2 decades ago and you’re bringing back deadly diseases. Autism won’t kill your child. Measles will. I can’t believe I still have to say this. Hear us. Believe us.)

Anyway, that’s my message. I’m sick of this. Feel free to spread this like anti-vaxxers spread measles, because people DO talk about this, but I don’t see NTS willing to do much about it usually. Unfortunately we do need you on our side to hold yourselves accountable.

And it goes without saying that even though this is an autism specific post, this post is also friendly to other types of neurodivergence. We’re all in this (risk category) together.

#abuse tw

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mousegirlballs · 1 year ago

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I did read your tags and though I kinda agree with your points I have two things.

1. I think you're misreading the intent of the above poster, they probably mean "something I can ethically use." Given the problems they seem to have with it from other posts.

2. AI does actually have functional problems that make it hard to use even from a non ethics standpoint.

I don't have the link to the video on hand but some guy tested AI based on ethnic gender and ableist biases. He told it to generate hundreds of images for "autistic person photograph" He had to add the photograph part because everything came out as anime style white boys. But the results were staggering. 100% of them were depicted as being sad, all but one of them was a skinny white male with freckles. More than half of them had ginger hair.

Biasies like this DO lead to problems. If someone isn't actively thinking of diversity, or there's no human oversight at all (some text based AIs are being set up to write news articles and being attached to image AI to make the covers for said articles.) Then these systems will create a world in which no autistic person can be happy, or a woman, or any other skin tone than white with freckles. And humans who read these articles and see nothing but these examples will subconsciously think "this is what all autistic people look like."

A study on this was done before AI became a thing where the same text of an article was shown but with two photos of the same black man. The article was about him being wrongfully murdered by the police, explicitly stating that it was a mistake. When shown a mug shot nearly half of the readers stated he probably deserved it or was being violent. When show an image of him sad and alone in a cell they often said the officers would be tried for murder. When shown a picture of that man with his family they said he didn't deserve what hapoened to him, but rarely mentioned the officers.

And image AIs are also beginning to scrape images from fellow AIs or even scrape their own output. Causing several offshoots or even the main system to have inbreeding issues, where images with obvious mistakes made by an AI are being taken in as examples of how to do it right.

Text based AIs were also tested on history, math, physics, and literature. Asked questions like "when was America discovered." "What is 7 * 8" "a ball is dropped from 30 feet up, due to the force of gravity how long will it take to hit the ground?" And "name three characters from Romeo and Juliette" respectively.

During the beginning it would get roughly 80-90% correct depending on the subject. Nowadays they get only around 20% even with their best subjects.

These AI models are being used by companies to write news articles that people use to stay informed. Several have been caught obviously using AI because of wild inaccuracies unlike any a human writer has made before. These models ARE unusable for any use case other than sheer novelty. But having to curate the information that goes in might help these systems to stay as accurate as they were when first released, and allow them to become as complex as they are today while still maintaining that.

Maybe training image AIs on curated data will allow it to make more diverse images, and to avoid inbreeding. Maybe it'll just be more of the same. Maybe a human hand controlling what goes in will make it even worse.

We don't know because no one has tried it yet. But we know what they're doing now isn't working.

Personally I don't like the idea of AI the way it's being used either. Even if it worked perfectly. It's being used to replace abused undervalues workers. I've heard it all "now everyone can make art with only some free software." There's already free software you can use to make art, with tools that make it easier then a pen and paper. Or you could just pay an artist that subscription fee you pay the AI company. "Now we can complete our favorite fanfiction or get sequels to our favorite books." No one was stopping you from writing it before. Or paying an artist to make it for you. It'd probably be cheaper then the subscription since hobby writers value themselves so little.

And don't pretend that none of the people making these arguments pay the subscription. Most of them post several AI artworks a day and I know full well that these programs have a limit on how many you can make, and that's assuming they post everything they make, sometimes you have to run the same prompt 9 or 10 times before you get soemthing that looks good. Or you need to keep telling an text based AI to keep going because it doesn't know how to end a story but it cuts off after only a few paragraphs leaving you on yet another cliffhanger. Anyone serious enough to go to bat for AIs have either never used it and don't realize how "not free" it really is, or they are trying to justify the money they spent.

There's one hobby writing site I know of that had to shut down because they went from having roughly 30 submissions a week, to several thousand a day. Each of which they had a curate as if it was a regular book going to the site, with less than ten moderators doing it as a hobby. And they would have to send an email to each per their own policies, allowing the writer to argue that the judgment was wrong or to edit the book and re-submit it. The AI writer would always say their art was perfect and they judge was wrong. The admin of the site was quoted saying "the problem isn't that their work was good, it's that they think it is." And went on to say they could usually tell from the first paragraph. Because most writers use the same cookie cutter opening, and when they don't it's at least coherent. Where AIs don't use any openings at all. It's all cold opening right into the action, nothing but climax, no build up, no payoff. They'd have to change their policies in a way they don't like, and more then triple their moderators, just to possibly keep up. And for what? A site that doesn't even pay the writers, or have competitions, let alone prizes.

They just wanted praise without having to do anything. Often without even proofreading it themselves to make sure it uses the same name for the protagonist from start to finish (which it often didn't.).

I desperately want AI to be as good as they say it is, I really do. But let's not pretend it's useful as anything more than a VERY interesting novelty. At least so far.

Well, this would be interesting...

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electronicdelusionstarlight · 4 years ago

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So, back in Highschool I used to go to my grandma alot, the Paternal one, wonderful woman, loved me dearly, helped raise me and my sister during our life alongside my other set of Grandparents due to, well... shit happening.

Anyway, she was also incredibly intolerant, like, she called Pope Francis the "Black Pope" and often went with the always classic "When HIM was still in charge, we didn't have all those crimes and degeneracy, the americans brought them here when they invaded with WWII," or "I wish we were still a kingdom under house Savoy," you know, the usual shit.

(Wonder if she would have loved me as dearly as she did if she knew about, well... the bisexuality and shit).

Anyway, this isn't about her per se, this is about her awful taste in tv show.

(No offense to grandma on that, cringe culture is dead even for 100 something Italian Grandmothers, but, I mean... she was a Superwholock. She called the Supernatural male leads "The Boys" and never missed a episode. She had frankly shit taste).

Anyway, aside from Superwholock, she also loved Cop Shows (Gee, wonder why), and since I used to be around her alot back in the days, I ended up getting somd of those cop shows by osmosis, consuming them uncritically with her.

(The ONLY valid one was Murder She Wrote, and even that barely).

ANYWAY, I'm saying this cause It suddenly came back to me a episode from one of said cop shows about this whole ass mess of a situation, and just how much of a Propaganda Piece it was.

From what I roughly remembered, A Cop was declared innocent over the murder of a black 15 years old, and the cop team in the cop show had to escort him safely out the courthouse as the boy's father and (white, incredibly stereotypical) girlfriend, leading a protest against police brutality outside, basically starts a riot at the news.

Anyway, the whole piece was raw ass propaganda, the cop is RIDDLED WITH GUILT and the father FORGIVES HIM after a touching scene where he explained he shot him cause he ran away from him because he had stolen a LEAF or some shit and he thought it was a gun and THE COP HAS WIFE AND CHILDREN, FEEL HIS REMORSE, FEEL HIS PAIN, MOVE ON or some shit.

The scene I remember the most is when a member of the squad goes Undercover among the protestors in order to get infos about the leaders of the protests, gets shoved in a detention bus as a gimmick, gets infos from a deteined protestor there, and then leaves "asking for the bathroom" and showing her badge. She's a brunette (Which says NOTHING cause 90% of cop shows have the same Brunette Character) and young, while the protestor wonan she talks to is also incredibly stereotypical and white.

ANYWAY, I decide, from this raw flashes of shit coming to mind, to evince what cop show this was from, because I'm a stubborn autistic bastard.

Searching for the rough plot gives me nothing, obviously, so I go for exclusion:

My first guess is the Closer, because that was the shit show she watched the most, but it doesn't fit my memories, the scene was too dark to be set in LA, maybe New York, also the team has no brunettes, and would have tried to violate way more costitutional rights in the situation.

Law and Order is also a pass, not their style, even if a juridical component was present.

Chicago PD came later in the years, so not that even if a Pro Police Brutality episode really seems something they would do.

Numb3rs discarded due to the lack of cheap math being used...

Criminal Minds seems a good guess at first, from Season 10 they have a "undercover expert" who is also a brunette woman, might work, but this is a protection sting, not a profiling one, the only reason why they would call them was on the pre existing threats sent to the cop, so it could have worked...

And then I remembered that Veronica Mars' dad was also there, as a cop.

So, I check his philmography, and find the hakf forgotten series my grandma used to watch.

Flashpoint is a CANADIAN (COPAGANDA IS COPAGANDA ALL AROUND THE WORLD) Cop Show about a response team in critical scenarios, like suicide or hostage crisises.

And the episode, is Season 4, episode 2, "Good Cop" (GODS EVEN THE TITLE IS ON THE NOSE).

You want some raw ass coppganda? You want to see how they'll try to spin the narrative next, after the dust has settled?

This is one of the two possible ways they'll do it.

The cop is sad, ridden with guilt, but JUST A MAN WHO MADE A MISTAKE, and clearly, the boy is to blame for running away from a stranger pointing a gun at him in thd middle of the night near his workplace, and we must forgive him cause that's what the boy he murdered would have wanted.

This shit was from 2011.

(The second way is going to have the "good cops" band together against 1 racist cop and that way they'll end systematic racism forever. That's also going to happen, but in the less Ben Shapiro adjacent ones).

(Oh yeah, friendly reminder Ben Shapiro wrote a book where we're supposed to be sympathetic to a white cop murdering a 8 YEARS FUCKONG OLD UNARMED BLACK KID because the kid was insulting the cop and "looked dangerous." Not dissimilar, if at least a smidge more sympathetic to the kid to the above shit show).

#cop show #copaganda #cop propaganda #coppaganda #eh

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ribbit-zar · 4 years ago

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Same violence, different place

The last few days made me realize how fucked up every single country is , and pay no mind I know that America ( the politics and government) is rotten since the day I was born, it’s something well spread in my country due to our horrible past experiences and ongoing struggle ( no, I’m not from Iran, the US fucks up more countries that just Iran ).

What I’m about to say may sound insensitive or triggering for some people, but please, try to think from my shoes , my perspective and consider it thinking out loud- because it is: I’m just sharing my thoughts since I felt this needed to be shared.

Ever since the BLM movement started I was shocked day by day at how fast it spread worldwide like a tidal wave, and I was happy yet at the same time concerned since if it spread so much that means that those protests in all of those countries stem from the same unfair treatment, take Brazil as an example, the president is slandering the protestors, threatening to prosecute them and calling them thugs just like Trump did, and what’s worse is that he’s dealing so badly with the corona pandemic he’s threatening to withdraw from the WHO . I mean wtf?

Yet what is making me write this is an incident that happened around the time George Floyd’s murder occured, it was the cold blooded shooting of an autistic young boy by police on his way to his special needs school. You haven’t heard have you? Of course. Again not that Back lives movements don’t matter , it’s just that there has been the same thing going on for the past 60 years, yet no one made a movement this big against it- not that I’m blaming anyone, it’s understandable since shamelessly Arabs who are supposed to be the first one to take action are not and if they are , it is only a small part of the arab world, and sometimes ironically non-Arabs are the ones who are protesting more that the actual Arabs, and I thank them.

https://www.kpbs.org/news/2020/jun/05/israeli-police-killing-of-palestinian-leads-to/

I’m talking about palestini kid Eyad Al-Hallaq and many many others who are killed daily, young kids shot brutally by Isreali forces on their way or back from school. If you google ‘Palestinian kid shot’ you will get news upon news, all articles posted DAILY, which share the same injustice like black people all around the world. Don’t get me wrong , I’m very very happy that people are speaking up! Fighting for justice! And do you know why I’m happy? Since finally America’s government has shown to the world it’s real ugly face, the hate and violence it is built upon .

If you follow Palestinian news ( like I do) and then see the police violence happening in America, you would not be able to ignore the barring similarity between their movements and way of choking the protest, and turns out my and many others doubts were met with the truth that many police forces are actually trained by a HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATOR Isreal

https://peoplesworld.org/article/israeli-forces-trained-cops-in-restraint-techniques-at-minneapolis-conference/

If this link doesn’t satisfy you as evidence, search for your own source as this issue was brought up in 2017 then again today as police brutality and ‘knee-on-neck’ move was high-lighted as a signature Isreali police move against Palestinians.

The whole point from my train of thought that I’m trying to convey is that: it has always been two main great evils in the world :the Isreali and American governments, where one terrorizes the middle east and the latter the world. I’m not denying that Russia, China or North Korea are not great evils, but they are not the greatest. It all stems back to the hate culture which Isreal is built on and America supports ( again, as governmet) and so we have come back to the same two main enemies in the Palestinian and black lives case, I’m not denying that each country is horrible in it’s own territory, but when you look at the bigger picture and political forces leading the world, you can see that these acts of hate only exist since there are instigators , and big ones as well, which are two entire world forces that flaunt this. Again: China and Russia also have great racism against many immigrants and races, but they don’t flaunt it or publicize it, which is bittersweet in it’s own way : bitter since this injustice is hidden and it is then the worse kind of injustice and sweet since it is hidden this action doesn’t spread and isn’t ’normalized’.

I might have gone off topic and ran around in circles in the my rant, but I hope that at least you take the good stuff from this text and open your eyes to what is happening all around the world since, as hard as it is to believe ALL related.

#blacklivesmatter #police #isreal #palestine #my rants #please donttake this negatively #antiblack violence #violence #america

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autisticbobsaginowskiredux · 7 years ago

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Don’t Let Us Get Sick

“So Mr. Magliacci,” Valencia said, laying the photos down on her desk, “I feel like you should know, most of my experience is with insurance investigations, unfaithful partners, things of that nature. Pretty much all of it, if I’m being honest.”

“And?” said Mr. Magliacci, who had close-cropped battleship-gray hair and the bullet shape common to middle-aged men who were muscular in their youth. “Is that a no?”

“No, no, no, not at all,” Valencia said, sitting forward in her chair. “Point I’m making, Mr. Magliacci, is this: by and large, people who hire me expect to turn up things they won’t like. More to the point, they’re sending me after people they’re prepared not to like. You seem like you love your daughter a lot, like you’re concerned about her.”

“Fuckin’ A.”

“So I just wonder if you feel like my area of expertise will lead me to investigate this in a way you didn’t necessarily emotionally prepare for.”

“Jesus Christ,” Mr. Magliacci said. “Whadya, tie ’em up and beat a confession out of them?”

“Of course not.”

“Then cut the bullshit. My God.”

“Just covering the bases. Tell me what you need. Specifically.”

Mr. Magliacci hugged himself and scratched his right forearm. “So Ms. Valdez, my little girl, Angie, she’s 20, sophomore at Columbia, first in the family.” He said it faux-conversationally, trying to make it sound like something other than a brag. It was the verbal equivalent of Bugs Bunny disguised as a woman: ridiculously obvious, but it still worked on some level. “And, like, I ain’t blind. I know my little girl. And I see her on parents weekend and I meet this friend of hers, black girl, and, like, she’s a friend of hers, you understand?”

Valencia nodded, trying to propel this wherever it was going.

“And, like, I’m pretty old-school, most people would say. She’d definitely say. But that’s still my little girl and I’m not one of these pricks who’s gonna throw a fit over that. But I never told her I knew, and I can’t really explain why. Maybe she knows I know, who knows. Anyway, I still read the blotter, which is goofy, I know, but about a week ago, somebody killed this girl, this friend of my Angie’s. Had her picture and everything. Looks like someone took her wallet and when there were only credit cards in there, they got pissed off, shot her.”

Valencia nodded again, hoping to God Mr. Magliacci didn’t have her confused with a bounty hunter or a button woman but also not wishing to interrupt the kind of man who goes looking for one.

“Now, ever since, Angie’s been acting strange. Which, obviously, that’s kinda to be expected, but I mean a different kind of strange. I tried to visit her on campus a couple times, as a surprise, you know, but everyone on her hall said she was gone. Like, with a friend. That’s what they said, a friend. And the other night, I pulled up across the street from her dorm, I see her get into this car I never seen before, but I know this type of car, right? Pulled over a hundred like it back in the day.”

“You think your daughter’s on drugs.”

Magliacci sighed and his entire upper body shuddered forward. “Yeah, that’s about the size of it. I’m not good at intervention shit and I want her to feel like she can talk to me about her friend, but if she feels like I’m coming at her, she might close up, you know?”

“Right, sure. So what is it you want me to do? Just find out whether she is?”

Mr. Magliacci shook his head. “A little more than that. I want you to get the guy away from her. I don’t need to know how and I don’t care.”

“You don’t think she’d find another dealer?”

“She probably would. But it gives me a window when I’d feel better about talking to her.”

Valencia looked back at the pictures Mr. Magliacci had brought. Angie was a chubby dark-haired girl with a heart-shaped face and husky-blue eyes. “Tell me a little more about her. She have a job?”

“She’s a part-time production assistant at NBC. They’re pretty reasonable about her class schedule, so she’s there around 6 to 11 Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.”

“Okay. Anything else I need to know?”

Mr. Magliacci looked hesitant. “She’s, you know, she’s got autism, we’re pretty sure.”

“Pretty sure?”

“I mean, we got her diagnosed when she was eight, I was just never convinced. You know, she talks normally, she finished school and all that shit.”

Valencia raised an eyebrow. “Well, it’s, you know, it’s a spectrum, man.”

“So they say.” Mr. Magliacci shifted in his chair. “I’m just a cop from Bensonhurst, the fuck do I know?”

Valencia Valdez was youngish, photogenic and had never been a cop, all of which were fairly unusual for a private detective. This made her closer to people’s image of a TV detective than most of the competition, which was good for business. It gave her an advantage when her clients were cops, oddly enough; they allowed themselves vulnerability they wouldn’t when they felt like they had a bullshit tribal façade to maintain. Magliacci likely wouldn’t have told another cop Angie was autistic.

Along with the photos, Magliacci had included the clipping from the police blotter about Sophia, Angie’s girlfriend. As luck would have it (for a given value of “luck”), Sophia had been killed about three blocks from campus, close enough that an alert had gone out to all the students. Valencia put on his reading glasses and combed his undercut into something more befitting a bureaucrat as best he could. In a couple of Magliacci’s photos, Angie was with friends; he was able to identify one, Katrina Something.

Valencia was able to enhance the photo to pick out a uniform shirt under Katrina’s windbreaker; she cross-referenced it with a Yelp search and determined she was a waitress at the Side Door, a local restaurant that wasn’t owned by the university but whose clientele was overwhelmingly students (locals, as is often the case with such places, regarded it in a manner reminiscent of Romanian villagers discussing Castle Dracula).

Valencia called the restaurant and asked if Katrina was available; the manager said she’d be in at six that evening. Valencia thanked him and staked out the place from across the street at five, making sure to queue up albums she didn’t mind listening to in their entirety, like Nick Cave’s “Murder Ballads” and Florence & the Machine’s “Ceremonials,” on her phone.

Katrina got off around 9. Valencia crossed the street and called her name. She turned and looked confused but not worried.

“Hey, Katrina,” Valencia said, jogging up to her. “You’re a, you’re friends with Angela Magliacci, aren’t you?”

“Sure. Can I help you?”

“My name’s Katy Carr, I’m a grief counselor. Now, I don’t know if she ever told you this, but Angela’s mother was murdered in a robbery gone wrong several years ago.” (This was true.)

“I did, actually.”

“Right, okay. So the, ah, the shooting, near campus, recently, there’s concerns, sometimes, when something like that happens, it’ll trigger sort of a downturn, emotionally, for someone who’s had that kind of thing affect their lives before, so I’m just trying to find out if Angela seems like she’s been acting… odd, at all, since it happened.”

Katrina tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. “The university has a nondiscrimination policy,” she said. “You know that, right?”

“Of course. What’s that…”

“So if you’re trying to ferret out queer girls, that’s illegal.”

“It’s nothing like that. Are you saying they knew each other?”

“Soph was Angie’s girlfriend, yeah.”

This was good to know. Magliacci’s intuition being right meant a lot of the rest of what he’d said was likely accurate. “So back to my question, how’s Angela taking it?”

Katrina pursed her lips. “It’s complicated.”

“How do you mean?”

“Angie’s not a repressed person. She lets you know when she’s happy, when she’s sad, when she’s angry, all of it. But ever since Sophia died, it seems like she gets tenser and tenser over the course of the day. Her suitemate, Carol? Apparently the first few nights, right around 10, she said Angie had some kind of attack.”

“Attack?”

“Like, almost like a panic attack. She sounded like she was trying to keep it down, you know, repress it? You know how if you’re crying and trying to stop all at the same time?”

“Sure.”

“Yeah, that was how Angie was the first few nights. And we’d just been out that evening and she seemed fine.”

“So you said the first few nights. It’s been about a week and a half. Did something change?”

“She hasn’t been in the last few nights. At least not when most of us go to bed.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“Honestly?” Katrina dropped her voice a little. “I think she’s on the rebound. Which I totally get, no judgment, you do what you have to do for yourself, I just at the same time get why she’d want to be discreet about it too.”

“What makes you think that? Just her absence?”

“No, I’ve seen him. Artsy-looking white boy, older. Maybe like 30. Drives a Caddy, looks like a douchebag. We have an evening class Tuesday and Thursday and normally after it lets out we’ll go have a drink or chill in the commons but the past few nights she’s said she’s got something to take care of and I saw this guy pick her up.”

“And around when is that?”

“Class lets out at 9:40.”

Valencia pulled a campus map out of her coat. “I haven’t worked on campus long; can you show me around where she meets him?”

Katrina pointed to an intersection on the map. Valencia thanked her and headed back to her car.

It was Wednesday. The next night, Valencia put on her black turtleneck and leather jacket and put her gun against the small of her back before driving to the spot Katrina had said was the rendezvous point. As was her habit, she was early, which was a terrible strategy for keeping one’s nerves steady.

The Cadillac slid into the intersection around 9:30. Not long after, Angie advanced down the sidewalk and opened the door. She had a weird, purposeful stride in her step, with none of the trepidation Valencia would have expected from someone making a drug buy. The driver, a skinny dark-haired guy with a goatee wearing a scarf over a cardigan over a t-shirt, did indeed look like a douchebag.

Valencia was lucky she had filled her tank that morning; Cadillac Douche drove all the way to Brooklyn, parking out front of a small storefront in Greenpoint. After they got out and walked in, Valencia waited a second before getting up and following. The door, as she’d anticipated, was locked, but she was able to jimmy it open with the slim jim in her pocket.

The lights were dim inside the building; as Valencia’s eyes adjusted, she realized it was the waiting area of a recording studio. There was no one in the live room but she could make out the outlines of Angie and Cadillac Douche in the control room. She slowly approached the door, keeping out of what, as far as he could tell, was their line of sight. She put her ear to the door.

“…five hundred,” Valencia heard the guy say.

“That wasn’t what we discussed.”

“That wasn’t what we discussed on Tuesday. It’s a pain in the ass getting this shit.”

“It’s not shit.” There was a ragged, primal edge in Angie’s voice, but it wasn’t that of a junkie; it was something else Valencia couldn’t put his finger on.

“Let me hear it.”

“Money first.”

“Don’t be a prick, Brett. I don’t have that much on me anyway. I’ll give you the balance next time.”

“Sure you will.”

“Have I ever stiffed you?”

“I don’t work on credit, little girl.”

There was a pause, followed by a deep, shuddering sigh, and Valencia felt like she’d caught a whiff of the barely-repressed panic Katrina had described.

“Take me back to campus, then. I’ll… I’ll deal with it.”

“Okay, let’s not go nuts. There are ways you can pay me upfront.”

“What? What do you want, my phone? I need it.”

Brett sighed. “Jesus Christ, you can be dense, you know that? Do I have to spell everything out?”

“In my case, probably.”

“Fuck’s sake. Okay, I will. You want this without paying me 500, suck me off.”

There was another silence, this one unpunctuated.

“You are fucking disgusting,” Angie said at last.

“That’s a nice way to talk to your ride home.”

“I’m not riding home with you. I’ll get a cab, something. Let me out.”

“Whoa whoa whoa.” Valencia heard the squeaking of Brett standing up in a leather chair. “Let’s… sweetie, I gotta tell you, you really don’t hold the cards you think you do.”

Valencia threw open the door, flicked on the light and held her gun on Brett. “Get away from her,” he said.

“Hold on, who the fuck are you?”

“I’m not Porky Pig, so I know for a fuckin’ fact I didn’t stutter. Stop blocking her path, creep.”

Brett stepped back, shooting Valencia the sullen expression of a child told he couldn’t ride his bicycle on the roof.

Valencia kept her gun on Brett and shifted his gaze to Angie, who was remarkably composed, from the looks of it. “And Angie, I need you to tell me what’s going on. What are you buying from Fucko McScarfneck over here?”

Angie sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “Show him, Brett.”

Brett, still wearing that look, took a CD out of his cardigan and put it in the stereo. It began to play and an unaccompanied voice, a gorgeous, velvety one, sounding like a young Etta James, unspooled throughout the room and Valencia knew she was listening to the late Sophia.

“Don’t let us get sick, Don’t let us get old, Don’t let us get stupid, alright? Just make us be brave, And make us play nice, And let us be together tonight.”

“Sophia was trying to record an album here with Brett,” Angie explained. “Right up until she died, she was recording it. I was the one who told her she should record it because…” her voice caught for a second. “..because after we started to get serious, she’d sing to me over the phone every night after I got home from my evening class. Did my father tell you I’m on the spectrum?”

Valencia nodded.

“I have my routines. I need them. After Sophia died, I cried for nearly a full day, and once I was done, I realized I couldn’t sleep without her voice. I tried, God, did I try. After the first week, I reached out to Brett; I met him briefly when Sophia started recording. He was going to trash what she’d recorded but I told him how much I needed it, which, clearly, was a mistake. This is what men do, you know. They take advantage. Please tell my dad I’m sorry if I worried him.”

Valencia looked back over at Brett. “Hey, Brett,” she said, “just so you’re aware, Miss Magliacci’s father is a cop. Did you know that, Brett?”

“No.”

“Okay, well, now you do. And what’s going to happen is, you’re going to give her everything Sophia recorded with you — everything, understand — or her dad the cop hears what you tried to do, but before that happens I’m going to beat the shit out of you and glue that gross weak-chin-concealing goatee to your dick. You got all that?”

Brett nodded.

“Go get it. Darse prisa, dipshit.”

Brett kicked aside a cardboard box on the floor and opened a combination safe set in the wall. There were several jewel cases inside, each with an unlabeled CD. He roughly handed them all to Valencia.

“Don’t give them to me, asshole, give them to her.”

Brett, rolling his eyes before he could stop himself, handed them to Angie.

“Angela, are you okay with me giving you a ride home?” Valencia asked, the gun still on Brett.

“Sure,” Angie said. “Thanks for asking.”

Angie didn’t say much as they drove. It was a beautiful, clear night; a stiff breeze was lingering from February but spring was still in the air, the warmth of newness palpable in the spaces between.

“You gonna be okay, Angela?” Valencia said as they crossed the Williamsburg Bridge.

Angie looked up as though she’d forgotten she was there. “I think so,” she said. “It feels different than with Ma. I… I miss them both so much, you understand, but Sophia and I, we were both new at this. I’m not trying to sound callous, but I have to deal with this on two levels: I miss Sophia the person but I also have the disruption in the way things are to deal with. And that second one is easier than it was with Ma, because we were just getting serious. The singing will keep me steady on my feet until I’m ready to really think about her being gone. Does that make any sense?”

“Oh, no, yeah, perfect sense.”

“Are you just saying this? I’ve never lost someone like Sophia. I have no idea how much of a heartless bitch I’m being.”

“Angela,” Valencia said, “I promise you, you are no kind of heartless bitch. Anyone would be lucky to have you.”

“Thank you. What are you going to tell my father?”

“He wanted to know if you were on drugs, and I’m going to tell him you’re not.”

“What if he wants specifics?”

“I don’t think he will. He’s not a guy who understands everything, but he understands what he doesn’t understand, you know?”

“That’s true. Thank you.”

Valencia pulled up to the spot where Brett had picked up Angie and handed her her card. “You ever get in any kind of trouble, let me know, okay?”

“Actually, Ms…” she glanced at the card. “…Valdez, I have a request. I hope it’s not too strange.”

“Shoot.”

“Does this car have a CD player? I can’t tell by sight.”

“It does.”

“Can we play the rest of that song? It’s a bit late. I don’t want to wake anyone.”

“Sure.”

Angie put the CD in the player and hit the skip button a couple of times, and that ethereal voice filled the car.

“The moon has a face, and it smiles on the lake, And causes the ripples in time. I’m lucky to be here with someone I like, Who maketh my spirit to shine. Don’t let us get sick, Don’t let us get old, Don’t let us get stupid, alright? Just make us be brave, And make us play nice, And let us be together tonight.”

#crime fiction #fiction #short stories #mine #grief #loss #lgbtq fiction #autism fiction #actuallyautistic #neo-noir #New York noir

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rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world · 4 years ago

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As @janayathefuture spoke of yesterday, the fact that not only was #KyleRittenhouse given bail at all after murdering two protesters - Anthony Huber, 26, and Joseph Rosenbaum, 36 - and wounding a third after crossing state lines with an illegally obtained firearm and a clear desire to use it. He crossed state lines... to “protect” a car lot with a semi-automatic?? Afterwards, @kenoshapolicedepartment showed no interest in helping as Rittenhouse walked towards them with his hands up while protesters screamed that he had shot people. Meanwhile, #MatthewRushin, a young autistic Black man, was sentenced to 50 years for a car accident caused by a seizure. He was never given bond, and has been deprived of crucial medical care as a cyst on his pituitary gland continues unchecked and endangers his sight. #KaliefBrowder was a year younger than Rittenhouse when he was abducted off the street by @nypd and accused of stealing a backpack, which he always denied. He was held in Rikers Island AS A TEENAGER, for an alleged theft, for three years without trial. Two of those years he was held in solitary confinement. Two years after his release, Browder completed suicide, unable to live with the trauma. Yesterday was also the anniversary of the police murder of #TamirRice. A 12 year old boy playing in a park with a toy gun, who Timothy Loehmann shot almost immediately after he arrived on the scene. Despite the 911 caller’s note that the hun was “probably fake” and that the person in question was “probably a juvenile.” On video, the car containing Loehmann and officer Frank Garmback is not even fully stopped when he killed Rice. What you can do: - Tell everyone to boycott @mypillow because the maker paid a domestic terrorist’s bail - Contact VA Governor @ralphnortham and demand Matthew Rushin receive a full pardon & medical care. - Contact Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley to ask why the people, not the police, had to pay the Rice family’s $6 million settlement. Hold them accountable. #blacklivesmatter #freematthewrushin #kylerittenhouseisaterrorist #domesticterrorism #whitesupremacy #whitesupremacists #racism #blm #nojusticenopeace https://www.instagram.com/p/CH8WbW-A_tu/?igshid=2aqcctc65vnn

#kylerittenhouse #matthewrushin #kaliefbrowder #tamirrice #blacklivesmatter #freematthewrushin #kylerittenhouseisaterrorist #domesticterrorism #whitesupremacy #whitesupremacists #racism #blm #nojusticenopeace

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viralhottopics · 8 years ago

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Louisiana officer convicted of manslaughter in 6-year-old boy’s death

Jury finds Derrick Stafford guilty on manslaughter and attempted manslaughter charges

A Louisiana law enforcement officer was convicted Friday on a lesser charge of manslaughter in a shooting that killed a 6-year-old autistic boy, an encounter captured on tape by another officers body camera.

Jurors found Derrick Stafford guilty of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter charges, multiple news outlets reported. He had faced charges of second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder in the case.

Stafford, 33, and another deputy city marshal opened fire on a car killing Jeremy Mardis and critically wounding his father after a 2-mile (3-kilometer) car chase in Marksville on the night of 3 November, 2015.

Video from a police officers body camera shows the father, Christopher Few, had his hands raised inside his vehicle while the two deputies collectively fired 18 shots. At least four of those bullets hit Jeremy, who died within minutes.

Stafford testified that he shot at the car because he feared Few was going to back up and hit the other deputy, Norris Greenhouse Jr. I felt I had no choice but to save Norris. That is the only reason I fired my weapon, Stafford said.

Greenhouse, 25, faces a separate trial on murder charges later this year.

Stafford cried when a prosecutor showed him photographs of the slain first-grader. He said he did not know the boy was in the car when he fired and did not see his fathers hands in the air. Never in a million years would I have fired my weapon if I knew a child was in that car. I would have called off the pursuit myself, Stafford said.

Jurors heard testimony that Stafford fired 14 shots from his semi-automatic pistol. Stafford said Greenhouse stumbled and fell to the ground as he tried to back away from Fews car.

Stafford and Greenhouse are black. Few is white, and so was his son.

Defense attorneys accused investigators of rushing to judgment, arresting the officers less than a week after the shooting. One of Staffords attorneys has questioned whether investigators would have acted more deliberately if the officers had been white.

Staffords attorneys tried to pin the blame for the deadly confrontation on Few. They accused the 26-year-old father of leading the four officers on a dangerous, high-speed chase and ramming into Greenhouses vehicle before the gunfire erupted.

During the trials opening statements, defense attorney Jonathan Goins called Few the author of that childs fate. Goins also said Few had drugs and alcohol in his system at the time of the shooting.

But prosecutors said none of the fathers actions that night can justify the deadly response. Marksville Police Lieutenant Kenneth Parnell, whose body camera captured the shooting, testified that he did not fire at the car because he did not fear for his life.

Few testified on Tuesday that he never heard any warnings before two officers fired. He said he learned of his sons death when he regained consciousness at a hospital six days after the shooting, on the day of Jeremys funeral.

A prosecutor, Matthew Derbes, asked Few if he regrets not stopping his car when he saw the blue lights from an officers vehicle. Most definitely, Few said.

Every day. But he insisted he was driving safely and was not trying to escape. Few said he kept driving in hopes of catching up with a girlfriend in a van ahead of him, so that she could take care of his son if he got arrested. The whole reason there was even a chase was for his well-being, he said.

Stafford, a Marksville police lieutenant, and Greenhouse, a former Marksville police officer, were moonlighting on the night of the shooting.

Before the shooting, Stafford and Greenhouse both had been sued over claims they had used excessive force or neglected their duties as police officers. The Marksville police department suspended Stafford after his indictment on rape charges in 2011, but reinstated him after prosecutors dismissed the charges.