Old Saybrook Cops Blasted For Interrogation Of Down Syndrome Man

OLD SAYBROOK, CT — People have condemned the Old Saybrook Police Department for interrogating a man with Down syndrome about a stolen street sign over the weekend.

Rebecca Roy said police falsely accused her brother, CJ, of stealing the sign. Old Saybrook police Chief Michael Spera has not responded to Patch's request for comment.

Others have roundly criticized the department on its Facebook page.

One top comment reads: "Instead of posing for cute photo ops, maybe you could actually train your officers to not harass people with down’s syndrome and giving them stress and long term trust issues. Accusing someone who is severely developmentally disabled of a crime that required driving a car quickly is ridiculous. You are lucky the family isn’t suing you. They should. You wonder why people don’t trust you. You act like this and you don’t deserve trust."

The Roy family was about to have lunch Saturday afternoon when police rolled up to their Old Saybrook beach cottage.

A 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, as a neighbor reported a man was driving the suspect vehicle.

CJ does not have a driver's license.

"He cannot read well," Rebecca 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."

She and her mother told police, whose ranks had swelled from one to four officers and four police cars, that CJ has Down syndrome and may be nervous and have difficulty answering questions given he'd never had police contact.

"But, we respect the authority of the police and wanted to comply with their request, so we went to call him outside, " she wrote.

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 that soon a male Old Saybrook police officer showed up as well, "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 an 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.'"

Roy said Spera said, "Just give us the sign back and we'll be on our way."

"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," she said.

Roy said police did not "immediately take us up on our offer, and in fact, it took almost 45 minutes for them to leave."

Then, as police were about to search their home, "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 the police chief asked, "How many Honda CR-Vs do you think are driving around Old Saybrook with Maine plates?"

Roy described police as having, "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."

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."

"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 M. McCormick reads that "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."

The Facebook comments castigating the Old Saybrook Police Department

"You wonder why people do not respect you and the often times tough job you are faced with every day? Look in the F'ing mirror and repeat the garbage you threw at an innocent disabled man over a SIGN!!!"

"Is it possible to hire and train officers with common sense? As to not harass a gentleman who clearly has Down syndrome...or is it an ego thing?"

"Oooof, an apology may be in order, clean up the aggressive behavior... it’s a sign."

"Shouldn’t you be intimidating and harassing special needs citizens over Missing street signs? I mean you guys have that tough guy image to keep up and this kinda stuff just doesn’t cut it. So come on boys! Let’s get out there and slap around some school kids or send a single mother to the poorhouse with traffic violations. Show those citizens who’s boss!"

"Shame on you for bullying a disabled man and his family for no reason. Further shame on you for not appropriately apologizing to said family, and not issuing a public apology for the way your unrepentant officers bullied and harangued that man and his family, when they had not done anything wrong.

Your lack of acknowledgement of your officers’ deplorable behavior and their culpability is a disgrace on your department. Especially egregious is that one of the two officers whose behavior was particularly disgraceful in that incident is a former sheriff of a department in your area, who should, by virtue of his training and his command skills, be a better police officer instead of a creep and a bully who picks on women and the mentally disabled.

Shame on all of you, because when one of you acts in a despicable manner and the rest of you, including your Chief, don’t condemn his bad acts, you become complicit in his disrespect of the people that you serve."