Family Of Man With Down Syndrome Stunned By Police Interrogation

OLD SAYBROOK, CT — They were about to have lunch when police rolled up to their Old Saybrook beach cottage Saturday afternoon.

The female police officer told Rebecca Roy and her mother that a man was seen stealing a street sign and driving a vehicle that matched the description of Rebecca's gray Honda. And then the interrogation began. More officers arrived, including the police chief, and the questions were aimed at her brother because a neighbor reported a man was driving the suspect vehicle.

But Roy's brother, CJ, who has Down syndrome, does not have a driver's license.

"He cannot read well," Roy wrote in a Facebook post. "He is not capable of moving deftly enough to steal a street sign, nor does he have any motive to do so. My mother and I explained this to the officer (who by now had been joined by three additional officers and four total squad cars). Even so, they said they would need to ask my brother some questions.

"My mother expressed that CJ may be nervous when he saw them as he's never been questioned by the police. But, we respect the authority of the police and wanted to comply with their request, so we went to call him outside. "

That's when things went awry, according to Roy.

"It became apparent that my brother was a suspect for no other reason than that my car matched a blurry photo a witness had taken, and that we had reported he was wearing a striped shirt like the alleged perpetrator," Roy wrote.

Roy said a male police officer "clearly thought he had apprehended a criminal. There was no civility in his tone when dealing with us, and the clear indication from his attitude was that we were guilty."

Roy said the officer "without any recourse or reason to do so, said to my mentally handicapped brother, 'Buddy, tell us what you did with the sign.'"

Roy said she "intervened and said he had absolutely no right to make a demand like that when we live in the United States of America where citizens are assumed innocent until proven guilty."

She said the officer "didn't ask, 'Did you take a street sign today?,' or 'Can you tell us if you made any additional stops on your way home from your errands?' No. 'Tell us what you did with the sign.'"

Then, Roy said, Old Saybrook police Chief Michael Spera arrived and told Roy, "Just give us the sign back and we'll be on our way."

She said, "At this point, four police vehicles are lined up in front of our house, neighbors are beginning to stare, and a line of cars is stalled behind the squadron trying to exit our road. I repeated that we had not stolen anything and offered for the officers to search my car and our house so we could get on with our day, and they could continue with their search to find the real culprit."

Roy said police did not "immediately take us up on our offer, and in fact, it took almost 45 minutes for them to leave. They were readying to search our cottage when a new picture came through that made it clear that the rims on my CR-V were different than those of the perpetrator's vehicle."

Roy said that during the near hour police were at their home, she and her brother CJ were "made to feel like we had done something wrong, that we were liars and thieves." She said that Spera said: "How many Honda CR-Vs do you think are driving around Old Saybrook with Maine plates?"

She said that police "aggressively questioned my brother, who is clearly developmentally delayed, with no regard for his handicap or assumption of his innocence. They peered into my car windows and kept demanding that I return the signs without any regard for my lack of criminal history and assurances that I would never do something like that, especially with my brother in my company."

Patch called and emailed Spera for comment. This post will be updated if and when a response is received.

Roy wrote that she has "never felt as violated or furious as I did today."

"The police's duty is to serve and protect, not to harass innocent people because they're on a witch hunt to play cops and robbers on a beautiful day when the most pressing crime that's been committed is the theft of a street sign. As a white, upper middle class woman, I couldn't help but think standing there, 'What if I was black?' There was a moment when I thought we may be arrested, but I never feared for my life, and I know that I am lucky and privileged because of that."

Roy said that the "most heartbreaking part came as the officers were leaving."

She said that while they apologized, the two "most domineering officers left immediately after realizing they had the wrong people."

Her brother told police "I'm a nice person," she said.

"After they had gone, he said to me, 'Those people had guns.' Way to make the most gentle and kind person on planet earth feel threatened and unsafe."

In response to this story, the Down Syndrome Association of Connecticut issued a statement calling for police and the town to issue an apology and for the Old Saybrook police and other departments statewide to "commit to making appropriate interactions with vulnerable populations as a priority."

Saying the advocacy group was "gravely disappointed," the statement from the association's executive director, Shanon McCormick, reads: "CJ, like many people with individual intellectual and developmental disabilities believes the police are there to help and protect him. But the harsh questioning however has left him afraid."

McCormick wrote that the "unfortunate incident underscores the need for sensitivity and de-escalation training at all levels of public safety and emergency response."

"There are far too many examples of police encounters that started like this one and went horribly wrong. It’s a parent's worst nightmare."