Bodycam Footage Shows Police Tasing Non-Verbal Autistic Man Multiple Times

A night that unfolded in slow motion for a mother has led to her calling for change after her son, who is nonverbal with autism, was tased several times by police.

Body camera footage from the Glynn County Police Department showed the responding officers' response to a call regarding a Black man that dispatchers described as having a weapon and "screaming and hitting himself in the head." During the September 4 response, officers used a TASER on the man, identified as Rajon Cherry, several times. The weapon was later discovered to be a spoon.

First Coast News reported that Cherry was walking slowly toward an officer as he was told to drop the "weapon." Upon getting tased by officers, Cherry screamed and dropped the spoon. Officers continued to tell Cherry to get on the ground before getting tased a second time. Cherry jogged away from officers and was tased again before ultimately being tackled to the ground.

Bystanders were heard in the background, and at one point, one person screamed to officers that Cherry is nonverbal and has autism.

"I'm still in shock and disbelief," Sherril Johnson, Cherry's mother, told Newsweek. "I'm worried about my son and my daughter because she was there and witnessed all of that. I feel like I couldn't help. I couldn't keep them safe."

Johnson said she is still processing what happened, and nothing like that has ever happened to her or her son before. She explained that she has lived in the neighborhood since 2010 and everyone, including officers that patrolled the area, knew her son.

When she got the call about her son that night, Johnson arrived to the scene and saw Cherry standing upright covered in dirt and was bleeding.

Cherry was taken to the hospital by police, but Johnson said she took him home before he received treatment. She said he was not provided a mask or a room in the hospital.

Zoe Gross, the director of advocacy at Autistic Self Advocacy Network, told Newsweek she believes the police should not have been called in the first place, and their response was inappropriate.

"I'm not clear why anyone needs to respond violently to a man who is walking, holding a spoon and making noises," Gross said. "When people are in a mental health crisis, police shouldn't be the responders, regardless. Because too often they respond like this, with violence."

If someone was experiencing a crisis and they are perceived to be in danger, Gross said there is a model for not having police respond, called CAHOOTS, which stands for Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets. She explained that a team, which includes a counselor with de-escalation training and a medic, will work with someone and determine what kinds of services they may need and provide medical assistance.

Gross said there have been ongoing efforts to provide police training, but the concern at Autistic Self Advocacy Network is that despite these trainings, someone can "still violently target an autistic person."

"People of color with disabilities, especially Black people with disabilities, are disproportionately the targets of police violence," she told Newsweek. "This is just another part of that pattern."

Gross also said she was disturbed by Glynn County Police Chief Jacques Battiste's statement on the incident, which was included in the caption of the body camera footage posted to Facebook.

"I commend the officers for using less-lethal force and their ability to read the terrain as the event unfolded, preventing loss of life or serious injury to anyone involved," Battiste said.

A comment written by the police department under the video also claimed the officers did not know Cherry had autism or was nonverbal when they responded.

This incident is under administrative review by the Glynn County Police Department.

Johnson told Newsweek that she did not speak with the police department since the incident, but she did see Battiste's statement.

"You're applauding them for not killing? That's what [he's] saying," she said.

To make a true difference, Gross said more needs to be done beyond just training.

"In many cases where there is that training, we're seeing that it's not doing the trick," she said. "What we need to do is increase civilian oversight of police, increase police accountability through policies like ending qualified immunity and redirect funding toward community services, which can give people help and not just offer violence when someone is in crisis."

Johnson said officers need better training in addressing these situations, but she also wants to raise more awareness about autism to the local community.

"If we can get with our police departments, and we can offer training or just expose them to people with autism, the more familiar you get and the more likely you're able to understand," she said.

Since the incident, Johnson said Cherry has been sleeping more frequently and noticed a change in his mood.

"They go through trauma like that and not understand why," Johnson said. "He doesn't understand the way the world is. He's been home with [me] and I'm teaching him love. I tell him God is kind, I taught him that we all love him. For him to be treated that way, he doesn't understand that."

Newsweek has reached out to the Glynn County Police Department and the Glynn County District Attorney's Office but did not hear back by press time.

Correction 09/13/2021, 12:23 p.m. ET: This article was updated to correct the spelling of Sherril Johnson's name.