A Kid with Autism and a Drug Sting
Encounters between
police and
ASD people can go
terribly wrong.
The Huffington Post reports:
An undercover police officer tricked a teenager with autism into buying pot for him, a lawsuit filed by the boy's parents alleges.
The 17-year-old, who isn't named in the lawsuit, was arrested with 21 other high school students on drug-dealing charges as part of a sting operation last December at Chaparral High School in Temecula, Calif. His parents, Catherine and Doug Snodgrass, on Wednesday announced a lawsuit in state Superior Court that seeks unspecified damages from the Temecula Valley School District, alleging negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
"Certain parts of my son have been damaged in ways that I think will be permanent," Doug Snodgrass told The Huffington Post.
The LA Weekly adds detail:
The suit, obtained by the Weekly, was being filed in Riverside County Superior Court.
His parents have said that the officer, part of the Riverside County Special Investigations Task Force, sent Snodgrass more than 60 text messages in an effort to woo his friendship and get him to provide marijuana.
They say Snodgrass was aiming to please when he found a homeless guy who gave him a joint. Incredulously, they say, it wasn't enough for the cop, and the teen found him $20 worth, only to be arrested.
The suit says the cop was so obvious to the "nondisabled" kids on campus that they called him Deputy Dan. The suit describes Snodgrass as a ...
... new vulnerable, naive, socially deficient, autistic student who had no friends and who did not have the ability to appropriately process, assess or navigate through such a difficult school situation into which he was recklessly/negligently and/or intentionally placed by Defendants ...
In May, ABC reported:
