Dr Kelly Fleming

Imagine yourself driving down the road and a police car pulls you over. Your heart skips a beat. You’re disabled and you have no way to tell the officers who are trying to get you to “listen” to them.

Disclaimer: I’m unable to drive due to my vision loss but what I describe here has happened to friends of mine. They are true stories.

A Deaf woman was pulled over. The police officers were “talking” to her but she didn’t know. She simply stayed sitting in her car. Suddenly, she saw both officers step out of their vehicle and she saw the face of one who was obviously speaking. She lifted her hands to point to her ears and shook her head to indicate she couldn’t hear them. She thought that would help them realize she was Deaf.

As she stared outside her windshield, she saw them both draw their guns and use them to point to her to get out of her vehicle.

Terrified, she got out of her vehicle with her phone in her hand. Her only method of communication with the hearing officers who were still pointing their guns at her to put her hands on her car.

One officer came up behind her and took her phone. She had no idea what was happening. Finally after what seemed to be infinity, she turned around, trying to voice “Me… Deaf”.

Slowly the one officer lowered his gun. He gave her back her phone and using her speech to text app, she discovered that she was pulled over because she had a broken taillight!

The other officer had lowered his gun and after the explanation about the taillight, they both apologized for causing her to be so scared. The officer who had been talking to her appeared to be slightly shaken as he said to her, “I didn’t know you were Deaf, I handled the situation as I was taught for someone who was refusing to listen to our instructions to step out of the car. Something needs to be done so this doesn’t happen in the future.”

Another friend of mine found himself in a similar situation that didn’t go quite as smoothly as my friend mentioned above.

He was pulled over and heard the police officer telling him to get out of his vehicle and put his hands on the hood.

He stayed in his car and put his arms up. The voice got louder and more demanding.

The officer stepped out of his vehicle, walked towards my friend’s car and as my friend opened the door, he tried to tell the officer that he couldn’t get out of his vehicle because he was paralyzed and his chair was in behind his seat. He tried to ask him to give him a moment and as he reached to the side of his seat to pull his chair out of his car. As he did so, he was caught off guard.

I’m sure the police officer was in “protect himself” mode. The moment my friend reached for his chair, the officer pulled him out of his car. Since he was paralyzed below the chest, he fell to the ground. While lying on the ground, my friend continued to try to explain himself to the police officer to no avail.

When a second police officer showed up, he looked inside the car and saw my friend’s wheelchair.

Why didn’t the first officer see the wheelchair parking sign on my friend’s dashboard? His mind was already set that my friend was resisting his orders to step out of his car.

This particular friend’s experience did not end as peacefully as my Deaf friend’s experience. He was injured when he was pulled out of his car and had to go to the ER.

He did not receive an apology for being manhandled.

These two incidents are not isolated. I’m not trying to blame the police officers. They were doing their job. However, their ignorance of disabilities caused great trauma to both of my friends.

If there was more training for police officers, these two incidents and countless others related to disabled people, would not happen.

You might ask why I’ve included these when it’s not part of my personal journey. I’ve included them because I’m a part of a much larger community of disabled people. Discrimination happens at every level in our lives. What happened to my friends hurts my heart.