Nichole Manna at The Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
If Graham police had proper training on how to approach people with autism and if all information given to dispatch had been relayed to officers, it’s likely that 19-year-old Michael Moore would have never been cuffed, wrestled to the ground and stunned twice by officers on June 26, according to experts.
That day, a neighbor in the 900 block of Texas Street called 911 to report that someone was throwing rocks into her yard and at her dogs. It wasn’t the first time he had done it, she said. She told dispatchers that Moore seemed to be “not all there.” She also asked dispatch to tell the officers to talk to her before they approached Moore. She said she had asked Moore not to throw rocks before, and just wanted officers to talk to him, reports say.
However, records show that dispatch didn’t tell police that the caller described Moore as “not all there” — which she meant as “mentally,” she wrote in an account to police.
