Oakland, CA – This happened just before I entered Gold’ Gym last night and at about 7:45 PM from reports. From the statements, and now accounts on Facebook, a teenager of between 17 but perhaps as much as 20 years old, was hitting his father, described as an elderly man in “his 60s.” While the two struggled, a bystander called the Oakland Police.
This is how one observer described it on Facebook:
I was there. The kid, about 18-20 yrs old is Autistic & apparently the parents are in their 60’s couldn’t control him. He started to beat up his dad, I don’t know who called the cops, all I know is that the Oakland PD showed up & made it worse. They hog tied him & kept telling him to calm down, he fought cause he was scared. He didn’t understand why 6 cops were surrounding him. The police directly asked the mother and father if they should “taze” their son! That’s so messed up!
In addition, I was told that the teen started to yell “Cops. cops” as they surrounded him. Then he tried to run away, and did so via a passageway that led to a place behind the 598 Grand Avenue building. But there were more Oakland Police cars there. So in total there were eight officers, and six police cars, all for one Autistic teenager.
The Oakland Police don’t have training in working with Autistic kids. Telling one to “calm down” while surrounding that person with police officers doesn’t help at all.
Eventually, the OPD put the teen in an ambulance and took him to the hospital.
Stay tuned.