On January 1, Florida will put into effect a new law establishing a “Special Persons Registry,” of people with disabilities that law enforcement officers can access, in hopes that it improves police interactions.
This May, the state passed CS/SB 784, or the “Protect Our Loved Ones Act.” The law allows law enforcement to set up a database of people “who have developmental, psychological, or other disabilities or conditions that may be relevant to their interactions with law enforcement officers.”
The registry is opt-in, meaning disabled people can register themselves, or their parent or caretaker can register them. Proof of a disability or illness must be provided, and in the case of those not registering themselves, proof of parentage or guardianship is required. The database can contain name and contact information, as well as information about the “disability or condition that may be relevant to interactions with law enforcement officers.”
Florida police expect the special persons registry to help officers treat those with special needs, especially those who may be lost or missing.
“If there is something that helps us narrow down our search or provide information on this person that may help us. For instance, some autistic children are drawn to water. There may be some notes there on the registry that says this child is lost, they may be drawn to water, so we want to go look there first,” Lieutenant Paul Bloom of the Marion County Sheriff’s Office told WJXT-TV.
Edith Gendron, the Chief of Operations at the Alzheimer’s and Dementia Resource Center told WFTV-TV that the registry can help both patients and caretakers.
“The person living with Alzheimer’s disease jumped out of the car,” Gendron said. “The spouse came around and was struggling with the person trying to get them back in the car. The spouse got arrested for domestic violence.”
While most of the examples in local coverage are of people with dementia or other mental issues who wander and get lost and require help, it remains to be seen if it will help police interact with other people in distress. Nearly half of those killed by police have a disability, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Many times, police are the first responders to people having a mental health crisis. For example, in 2013, police killed Robert Saylor, a 26-year-old with Down syndrome in an incident at a Maryland movie theater. Saylor tried to stay for a second showing of the film he’d bought a ticket to, leading to a confrontation with theater security and police, according to NBC News.
In May 2018, Marcus-David Peters, a high school biology teacher with no criminal record nor history of drug use was shot by an officer in Richmond, Virginia during a psychotic episode, according to Time.
“People ask me all the time, ‘What do you think caused him to have a mental break?’ And I say, ‘We’ll never know, because he was killed,'” Peters’ sister, Princess Blanding, told the magazine.