Video of a Vacaville police officer assaulting an autistic teen is going viral after the video appears to show the officer aggressively speaking to the child, throwing his scooter, throwing the teen to the ground when the teen got up to move, and punching the teen.
The teen begged the officer to stop and call his parents. The officer responded saying "don't make me hurt you more."
On Facebook, the teens father wrote:
To All my Friends and Family, I need your help. Some of you know and some of you don't, but my 17 year year old son, Preston, has Autism and ADHD.He looks and acts younger than he is. Everyone he meets, thinks he is younger than he is. On April 21st at approximately 2:30 pm Preston was Aggressively approached by a Vacaville, California police officer. The officer screamed at him to sit down which he did. The officer then moved Aggressively toward my son, threw his scooter and got in his face. My son became fearful, as would any child with Autism. The officer went to touch Preston, at which point Preston moves away. At this point, Preston was confused and afraid and moves away from the officer even more. At that point the officer felt it was a good idea to THROW Preston to the ground. Once on the ground, the officer climbed on top of Preston and PUNCHED him in the face. All of this was witnessed by multiple neighbors and caught on video. In the video you can hear Preston telling the officer to "call his parents". I don't believe that Preston will ever trust a police officer again. I am pro police, but I am not pro ABUSE! This individual and department must be held accountable for their actions. NO child, disability or not, deserves to be treated like this. Please be aware, the following videos are Disturbing. Please make this go viral.
The officer responded to a call that the teen was involved in a fight with a deadly weapon. The teen apparently was being bullied and picked up a metal object to defend himself before a bystander broke up the fight.
As the father of the teen stated, how this officer handled the situation with the teen whom was scared, was uncalled for. The father believes there needs to be more training for how to handle people, regardless if they have a disability or not. Let's hope this officer is held accountable because as we all know, not all cops are bad. But the bad apples make the entire fruit basket spoil.