Trigger Warning: This article contains content that may be sensitive or disturbing to some readers. Reader discretion is advised.

On April 5, 2025, in Pocatello, Idaho, 17-year-old Victor Perez, a Hispanic teen with autism and cerebral palsy, was shot nine times by police during a domestic call. Victor was nonverbal, intellectually disabled, and could barely walk due to his condition. He was having a mental health crisis, holding a kitchen knife in his family’s yard, when a neighbor called 911. Within 12 seconds of arriving, four officers fired from behind a chain-link fence, leaving Victor brain-dead. His family took him off life support on April 12. This story’s blowing up, and it’s raising some serious red flags about how police handle vulnerable people. Why Did Cops Shoot So Fast? The tragedy of this is that the shooting took place on live TV, the police officers were dressed as if they were going to stop a terrorist group, and everyone saw that the victim Perez had no offense, and no defense.

According to the “NATIONAL ALLIANCE ON MENTAL ILLNESS” and a report by “Ruderman Family Foundation” a disability organization, proposes that while police interactions with minorities draw increasing scrutiny, disability and health considerations are still neglected in media coverage and law enforcement policy.  They report on two cases: Laquan McDonald was a 17-year-old high school student in Chicago, Illinois. On October 20th, 2014, Laquan was killed when a Chicago Police officer fired 16 shots at him while he had his back turned and was walking away. It was reported by the newspaper  Chicago Tribune, McDonald suffered from PTSD and “complex mental health problems.” Another case is the tragedy of he death of 26-year-old Robert Ethan Saylor, an individual who had Down Syndrome. As reported by Justia Law website on January 12, 2013.

Ethan Saylor, a 26-year-old with Down syndrome who was simply trying to spend a day at the movies when he was killed in 2013. That day he purchased a ticket to see “Zero Dark Thirty,” but when he tried to stay in the theater for a second showing of the movie, he got into an altercation with the theater’s security. Saylor was unarmed, and three off-duty Frederick County deputies, working as security guards, restrained and dragged him from the theater until he died of asphyxiation. Many witnesses heard him screaming “mommy mommy” it hurts! Authorities ruled a homicide yet the Maryland grand jury declined to indict the officers!

One has to ask what training does the Police Academy do deal or work with People with Disabilities! To add why hardly no mention of these  killings in the mainstream media? Sad!

As reported by the website CantStopPoppin