{"id":63006,"date":"2013-08-26T22:50:05","date_gmt":"2013-08-26T21:50:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/death-of-man-with-down-syndrome-provokes-public-backlash-against-police\/63006\/"},"modified":"2013-08-26T22:50:05","modified_gmt":"2013-08-26T21:50:05","slug":"death-of-man-with-down-syndrome-provokes-public-backlash-against-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/death-of-man-with-down-syndrome-provokes-public-backlash-against-police\/","title":{"rendered":"Death of man with Down syndrome provokes public backlash against police"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n

Nearly a quarter-million people have signed a petition asking Maryland Governor Martin O\u2019Malley to launch an investigation into the January death of a man with Down syndrome killed during a struggle with police at a Frederick, MD movie theatre.<\/p>\n

\n Seven months after Ethan Saylor died<\/a> in police custody, the man\u2019s friends and family
\n have collected over 233,400 signatures asking Gov. O\u2019Malley for
\n an independent investigation \u201cso the facts can come out and
\n those responsible can be appropriately prosecuted<\/i>.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Saylor, 26, passed away earlier this year after his larynx was
\n crushed during a confrontation that ended with three off-duty
\n sheriff\u2019s officers attempting to subdue the man. Saylor was
\n attending a screening of the film \u201cZero Dark Thirty\u201d and
\n reportedly refused to leave at the conclusion of the movie. When
\n the deputies attempted to move him, Saylor\u2019s caregiver warned
\n that touching the man would make things worse. But according to
\n witnesses, he was thrown to the ground and struggled under the
\n weight of the three officers before he died.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI never thought that anything like this would happen in my
\n town, let alone to my brother<\/i>,\u201d his sister, 23-year-old Emma
\n Saylor, told Yahoo News.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n The coroner\u2019s office ultimately ruled Mr. Saylor\u2019s death a
\n homicide by asphyxiation, but a grand jury put together in
\n response elected not to indict any of the men for their role in
\n his passing. The Department of Justice has since launched a probe
\n of their own to see if Saylor\u2019s civil rights were violated under
\n the American with Disabilities Act, but now nearly a
\n quarter-of-a-million people have signed their name asking for the
\n governor to give the case another try.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cHis senseless death was ruled a homicide, but the Frederick
\n County Sheriff and Prosecutor neglected to conduct a thorough
\n investigation of the facts and the grand jury refused to indict.
\n Ethan\u2019s death was senseless and entirely avoidable and we need an
\n independent, completed, and thorough investigation as to what
\n happened that night<\/i>,\u201d a copy of the petition reads on
\n Change.org.\n<\/p>\n

\n The 200,000-plug who have signed on are asking for Gov. O\u2019Malley
\n to make sure cops within the state are better prepared to handle
\n situations with the developmentally disabled.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cPart of the problem is that police officers in Maryland
\n aren’t trained enough in how to deal with developmentally
\n disabled people like my brother. I think training is an important
\n next step in making sure that what happens to my brother never
\n happens to anyone else<\/i>,\u201d Emma Saylor says on the Change.org
\n page.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe obviously want better training for law enforcement and
\n first responders<\/i>,\u201d Sara Weir, vice president of advocacy for
\n the National Down Syndrome Society, told Yahoo.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cFrom our perspective as a national organization, we need to
\n know what happened that night so we make sure something like this
\n never happens again<\/i>,\u201d she added.\n<\/p>\n

Republished from: RT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nearly a quarter-million people have signed a petition asking Maryland Governor Martin O\u2019Malley to launch an investigation into the January death of a man with Down syndrome killed during a struggle with police at a Frederick, MD movie theatre. Seven months after Ethan Saylor died in police custody, the man\u2019s friends and family have collected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-63006","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}