Joe Scarborough is at it again, with another comment about ASD. Tommy Christopher writes at Mediaite:
Joe Scarborough, who is, himself, the parent of a child with Asperger’s Syndrome, infuriated Autism advocates and other thinking people when, in the days following the devastating massacre in Aurora, Co., revealed that whenever one of these things happens, the first thing he thinks of is Autism. “You have these people that are somewhere, I believe, probably on the autism scale, I don’t know if that’s the case here, but it happens more often than not,” Scarborough said, despite the fact that no evidence exists to support that statement, and evidence suggests, instead, that developmentally disabled people are far more likely to be victims of violent crime than perpetrators of it, and their attackers are overwhelmingly neuro-typicals like Joe Scarborough.
That was before the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, which also touched off a flurry ofirresponsible reporting on ASDs, aided by the fact that the Newtown shooter apparently had Asperger’s Syndrome. Again, there is no evidence whatsoever that this contributed, in any way, to his crime, but the media has continued to focus on it anyway. It doesn’t help that law enforcement sources have consistently been leaking information, and highlighting evidence, about the shooter’s ASD, while ignoring the co-pathologies he was alleged to have had. If it’s ever actually confirmed that the Newtown shooter had an ASD (so far, the information has been gleaned through leaks,secondhand sources, and books found in the home), he would be the first.
That fact, however, didn’t stop Joe Scarborough from pre-judging the Newtown shooting, as he revealed Friday morning. “The second Mika and I heard the news that there was a shooting in Connecticut,” Scarborough said, “I said, ‘you watch. This kid is going to have a certain condition, I won’t say it here on the air because people will kill me for saying it.”
