We Need A TV Special

I don’t usually watch much in the way of ‘reality TV’, but this year some documentaries and one-off TV specials have caught my eye – all British (they seem to do this kind of thing best). It started with Big Fat Gypsy Weddings, and more recently there’s been the Seven Dwarves series, about a group of young dwarves living together while they’re acting in a Snow White Christmas pantomime. I also recently watched some of a doco on a young girl with progeria, the genetic condition that causes premature ageing.

What struck me about all of these, was the very ‘ordinariness’ of the people involved. Even if you don’t agree with all you see of them (the rigid sex-roles among gypsies and travellers, for example), they still come across both as individuals with their own unique personalities, and as ‘just regular people’. The gypsies and travellers want to settle down, form stable communities, preserve their traditions, and aim for better things for their kids. The girl with progeria wants hair she can flick in the wind. She dreams of living to be eighteen with the aid of a new drug, and old enough to drive a car – she’d love a Mini. The dwarves are just like any group of young people living together – they go out drinking and dancing, play practical jokes on each other, dream of marriage and kids, don’t do the housework – there’s even a gay dwarf. All the doco subjects have families and/or other people who love them, and who they love.

Yes, they experience prejudice or misunderstandings or patronisation. “They don’t like us cos we’re gypsies”, says one young boy. And you get the feeling he’s right. “Well, they’re not from round here, are they,” one of the locals wanting their eviction says, with a tight non-smile of (obvious even to me) contempt and loathing. The actress playing Snow White gushes about one of the dwarves “Oh, he’s so cute!” The dwarf in question is actually a miniature alpha male, if he was six feet tall, she wouldn’t be calling him ‘cute’ – or at least, not that kind of ‘cute’. And then there’s the “oh, look, aren’t they funny!” stares and laughter they get when out dancing or shopping. And so it goes on.

So you see the real difficulties they face. And yet, as I’ve said, the thing that comes through is their ‘ordinariness’, their humanness, how their needs and wants don’t really differ that much from the ‘normal’ people.

We need a TV special. We need a doco that shows us in all our eccentric glory, shows us living our lives, doing ‘normal’ things such as raising our kids, working at various jobs, putting the rubbish out, catching the bus, and so on. We need a TV special that shows the difficulties we face, but also the special things about being autistic, the good parts. We need a TV special that presents us in a non-patronising light, as individuals and as ‘just regular people’, albeit a little different. We need a TV special that shows us as human – not ‘tragedies’, not ‘monsters’, not ‘stolen children’, not freaks or violent or criminals or whatever stereotype people have in their heads. We need a TV special that allows us to be seen as human beings, with feelings and needs and dreams, with the capacity to love, to empathise, to reach out to others, in our own ways. We need a TV special that shows the full range of possibilities of being autistic, from the Nobel Prize-winners, through to those of us who will need full-time caring all our adult lives, and at least some of the many variations in-between. We need especially to have older autistics, who have managed to live some kind of independent life, seen and heard.

We don’t get that. Oh sure, there are occasional pieces on autism, on one current affairs show or another, but almost always they’re talking to the parents of autistic kids. The parents get interviewed. The parents get to tell about their lives. Occasionally, an adolescent or an older child is asked a sentence or two, or shown doing their favourite ‘obsessive activity’ (aka special interest), eg singing Disney songs or twirling pieces of rope. Adults (with a few notable exceptions, such as the Arie Smith-Voorkamp case) might as well not exist. Adults over the age of about thirty especially are invisible. Certainly there is no indication that we might be quietly living our lives, right under the noses of, and in amongst, the ‘normal’ people, doing ‘normal’ things, albeit in our own rather different ways.

We need a TV special. It’s long overdue in fact. You’ll forgive me however, if I’m just a tad cynical about it happening any time soon.

Merry festive season everyone. Hope it’s a good one. See you in the New Year.

First Responder Training in Autism

One thing which has been on many aspies’ minds as a result of the Arie case is the need for police and other ‘first responder’ training in how to recognise and handle autistic people.

Now some might think, “oh, why should they get special treatment?”, but the issue is not ‘special’ treatment so much as appropriate treatment. Imagine, for instance, that a police or ambulance officer sees a person staggering down the street, maybe falling down, twitching and shaking, slurring their words. Their first thought is likely to be “hmm, got another drunk or druggie here!” But if they then found out that the person was actually a diabetic in dire need of insulin, or an epileptic on the edge of a seizure, their whole approach would of course change.

And so it is with autism. Use your imagination once again, and visualise a police officer who encounters a person who ‘walks funny’, who makes inappropriate eye contact or none at all, who ignores social niceties; flinches from bright lights and the clanging of steel doors, seems confused under questioning, gives ‘strange’ answers, or asks lots of ‘strange’ questions themselves; someone who perhaps rambles on and on about things that have no relevance whatsoever to the situation (in the police officer’s eyes anyway), or at any point suddenly ‘shuts down’ and refuses to talk anymore, or insists on using a communication device that the police don’t understand; or suddenly goes into a huge ‘tantrum’, throwing objects, screaming and shouting, or bursting into a sobbing fit, perhaps banging their head against a wall.

If this hypothetical officer had no experience with autism, and no knowledge of it, wouldn’t they likely think the person was drunk, drugged, a psychiatric case, or guilty of something (“He won’t look me in the eye”), or just ‘faking it’ (“She could talk just fine half an hour ago!”)? But a basic knowledge of autism would enable them to see that the person is simply frightened, confused, overwhelmed, and probably experiencing the breakdown or loss of what few social skills they possess, not to mention sensory overload; and that further pressure will only worsen the situation. They could dim lights, provide a less noisy environment, etc etc, and above all not assume the person is ‘guilty’ simply because they don’t respond ‘appropriately’.

This is not ‘special treatment’, but simply common sense, once you understand just how differently autistic people experience the world around them. It’s similar to how knowledgeable individuals interact with people of different cultures. In Samoan culture, for instance, you always put yourself physically ‘lower’ than someone who is above you in status, and staring someone right in the eyes is considered rude. Thus a Samoan, intending to be polite, will immediately sit down, and won’t meet your eye. If they didn’t know, a ‘Palagi’ (white person) might think the Samoan was being rude or evasive. Many other cultures have similar rules. It’s generally only in Western cultures that looking someone straight in the eyes is considered a good thing. This is just one small example of how things can seem very different, once you understand the person you’re interacting with, and where they are ‘coming from’.

Training in awareness of autism for police and emergency personnel isn’t about ‘special treatment’, but rather about understanding and helping all members of the community, in the best way possible.

Justice for Arie - Part Four

It’s said that every cloud has a silver lining. Just last year, at an aspie gathering, we were talking about how we on the spectrum have been slow in building a really solid ‘neurodiversity’ movement similar to the feminist, gay and black liberation movements. This is because our very nature – individualistic, eccentric, lacking in social networking skills, executive functioning skills and sometimes even social inclinations – means such a ‘social’ movement has been hard to get going properly. Not to mention the fact that simply surviving in an NT world is struggle enough for many of us without being politically active as well. (I do respect the neurodiversity activists everywhere, who have done their best to create such a movement. It’s simply that most aspies/auties are not in touch with this, or able to participate, for all the reasons I’ve said.) I remember remarking that we needed some kind of a ‘cause célèbre’, to bring us together, fire us up, the way that the gay liberation movement for instance was started by the Stonewall Riot in the late 60s, and further fueled by the murder of Harvey Milk.

Well, now we’ve had one. This doesn’t mean for one moment that I would have wished on Arie and Michael, or anyone else, the troubles they’ve had. I simply meant that lacking such a case, we would remain largely fragmented and isolated. Arie’s case has brought Kiwi aspies and their NT friends and supporters together in ways nothing else has before, organised and galvanised spectrumites like never before.

Let’s not let this impetus subside again. Let’s use it to, for instance, get some real training for police and other emergency staff, as to how to recognise and best deal with those on the spectrum. Let’s use the contacts forged with the media, to take the next steps forward in bringing our issues before the public eye, and in increasing understanding of those on the spectrum – and perhaps finally ending at least the worst aspects of our long, lonely, marginalised and invisible existence.

Let’s start writing – more blogs, magazine and online articles, plays, books, TV and film scripts, etc, etc, etc, and populate them with realistic, fully-rounded (for once) autistic characters. Let’s paint and sculpt and create music, and do whatever else we want, in ways that express our autistic reality. Let’s stop being ashamed of and hiding our real selves, and let them out, in all their stumbling, rambling, quirky, eccentric, but magnificently unique glory.

And let’s start insisting to government departments and the like, that they change what my friend John Greally of Aspergers Syndrome New Zealand calls their “old deeply flawed premise that ASD is something to fix/therapise/eliminate/ex​terminate”, and instead insist on policies that can offer real help. Let’s transform the question, as he puts it, from "what are we [NTs] going to do about ‘their’ behaviour" (ie fix the broken) to "how can we appreciate them more for being who they are" (love the gift)”. Let’s get out there and create some real, and long overdue change.

And let’s see the light bulb, not the puzzle piece, become our symbol. Let us ensure a light bulb of awareness goes on for everyone.

Justice for Arie - Part Three

One little-known facet of Arie’s case has been the ‘non-association order’ that was put on Arie and Michael. Meant to stop hardened criminals from getting together to plan their next crime, it was singularly inappropriate in this case. Not only are Michael and Arie not ‘hardened criminals’, there’s a definite whiff of homophobia involved, in the sense of a same-sex relationship not being given the same value as a heterosexual one. Can anyone really imagine a straight couple, a married couple even, being slapped with such an order? Being ordered, in effect, to live apart, and have no contact at all? Would such an order even have been sought, let alone granted, if the partners were a male and female?

This order has taken a huge toll on them. They lost their flat, as they couldn’t live together. Their furniture had to be largely given away, as they had nowhere to store it. Their cat, left to fend for itself the first eleven days while they were both in jail, went ‘walkabout’, and has only just been found again recently by Michael. By the time the order was finally lifted, after three months, they were living with others on opposite sides of the city, and hardly able to see each other even then. They tried to move to another city and start again, but that proved difficult as they had to keep coming back to Christchurch for repeated court appearances.

The emotional toll it caused as well can only be guessed at. Though Arie was released from jail after eleven days, Michael spent six weeks inside – all the time without being able to have contact with his beloved partner. Though both had others around them for support, to not be able to even talk to the main person in your life must have been distressing. For Arie, as an aspie, it would also have been extremely difficult to be without his main ‘interpreter’, mediator and supporter in dealing with the confusions and stresses of the NT world. Any aspie who has such a partner or who feels the lack of one, will know how hard that must have been. As for Michael, he says of Arie simply, “he’s my rock”.

Arie and Michael – plus cat – are now planning to start their lives over again in a new city. They have behaved with enormous dignity and restraint throughout this whole business, and I’m sure many will join us Kiwi aspies and Arie’s NT supporters in wishing them all the best, and hope that their future proves to be a whole lot brighter than their recent past.

Justice for Arie - Part Two

The police press release about the dropping of charges in the Arie case is a litany of untruths. It has to be wondered – has Police Superintendent Cliff actually studied the facts of the case (and if he hasn’t, why not), or is this the version of events he’s been told (in which case someone has fed him some choice fibs), or is he telling us fibs himself?

Let’s examine those untruths. (And bear in mind, these words are from the official Police press release, on their website.) Firstly, he says that the two men were “seen entering” a building in the forbidden and patrolled ‘Red Zone’ of the CBD. He says that after “initially running from the police”, the two “were not compliant” and had to be “forced to the ground to be handcuffed”, and that it was in the course of this that Arie received a “bang to the side of his face”. He further says that they were “affected by alcohol and potentially drugs at the time of arrest”.

He then goes to defend the refusal of the police to grant diversion, claiming that this is only for those who “accept responsibility” for the offense, and then contradicts himself by saying that as there was a possibility of “issues of intellectual impairment which may [have offered] a defence”, they couldn’t grant it anyway. He maintains that “there were only two New Zealand police officers involved” and “no other police or defence staff [were] present as was later claimed”, and that he “fully back[s] the actions of the officers involved. Their actions were entirely appropriate”. He says that the reason that the “resolution” of these charges has taken so long is because of the delay in getting a psychiatric report, which indicated “diminished responsibility” on Arie’s part. And that they consequently decided to give Michael the “benefit of the doubt” as a result.

Translation and implications :- “they were two drunken and probably drugged louts caught red handed where they shouldn’t have been, doing what they shouldn’t have been, they tried to scarper (indicating sure guilt of something), they tried to fight the police and resist arrest, we didn’t hit them, the ground did it, they tried to weasel out of the charges, and in the end we let them off because Arie is a retard or a nutcase and we decided to let Michael off because he was there to look after his “mental” partner. But we’d do it all over again the same way if we had to.”

Sigh.

Now for the truth – the building was NOT in the Red Zone, but well outside it, and close to Arie and Michael’s home. The two men couldn’t have been spotting entering it, as Arie was in there for some while before Michael entered (it’s believed their torchlight was what attracted police attention). Arie had consumed a mere two glasses of wine earlier in the evening, and he never does drugs. They did not run, but rather froze in shock. Nor did they struggle or resist arrest, from the same shock, as they were quickly seized, thrown down and handcuffed, even as they tried to ask what was happening, or explain their presence there. And Michael maintains he clearly saw Arie receive a blow to the head after they were thrown to the ground. He also clearly remembers Arie’s stutter, which appears when he is under stress, being mocked and jeered at. And they still maintain there were more than two officers involved.

Subsequent to this, Arie did initially plead guilty, but despite the recommendations of no less than three judges, the police refused to grant diversion. The police were in possession of a psychiatric assessment as far back as May. And Arie and Michael’s real defense has always been not that Arie is ‘intellectually impaired’, but that no serious crime was actually committed by the pair. Arie has a slight speech impediment, but his intelligence is obviously normal, as is, I don’t doubt, his ability to know right from wrong. On the night in question, I believe it never occurred to him, in the midst of pursuing his ‘intense interest’ (I dislike the words ‘obsession’ or ‘compulsion’), that his actions could be interpreted as ‘wrong’.

Now some might think, ah well, what do a few details matter anyway? He got off, right?

But whenever the police publicly brand someone with the label of ‘looter’, or ‘burglar’ - or drunk, or drugged, or anything - the general population tends to take this as Gospel Truth, simply because it’s coming from the police, so it must be true, right? And if the defendant/s or their lawyer/s say something different, well, they would, wouldn’t they? The paradox is, that this gives the police carte blanche to lie if they want, and sometimes they do, because they can. I have seen it happen with my own eyes.

The untruths are not just a case of ‘sour grapes’, or a parting ‘up yours’ from the police. Potentially, they are seriously damaging to the public perception of those on the spectrum, which is not that good to start with. Many of the general public will have got the impression that here is a young man who got off serious charges because he ‘played the Aspergers card’. Or that having Aspergers means you’re a psychiatric case or intellectually disabled. The language of the media, who have consistently referred to Arie as ‘suffering’ from Aspergers, hasn’t really helped any. And the very people who we should be able to turn to for protection, may now prove to be our worst enemies.

Nor is this totally theoretical – every time this issue has come up on some public forum, on Facebook or elsewhere, someone always pops up with statements like “Well, if they do the crime, they should do the time”, or “no-one should get away with looting just because they’re aspie”. Repeatedly, those of us who know the real story have had to emphasize (you can almost hear the collective gritted teeth) that ARIE. WAS. NOT. LOOTING. End of. (I should add here, that this attitude comes equally from NTs and aspies, putting paid to the idea that aspies themselves believe we should have a ‘get out of jail free’ card, or that we lack the ability to form a sound moral code.) So simply by the police labelling Arie and Michael as ‘looters’, some believe their guilt from the start.

We aspies can be pleased that there’s been such unprecedented attention about this, that we adults on the spectrum have finally achieved a little public attention, and above all, of course, that there’s been a good outcome for Arie and Michael. But it has to be weighed against the damage done to our public image by such statements, damage that may take years or even decades to undo.

Do you hear that noise? It’s the sound of a whole bunch of Kiwi autistic adults banging their heads against the nearest wall, in despair or frustration …or a deep-seated and growing rage.

Justice for Arie at last - Part One

Yesterday, Monday, 22^nd August 2011, Arie Smith-Voorkamp, the aspie accused of ‘looting’ two light bulbs six months ago after the Christchurch earthquake, finally had all charges dropped against himself and his partner Michael Davis. Amidst the general celebrations of his supporters, many thoughts came to my mind. I have organized them into three parts, and this is the first.

Part One

The media focus was on Arie’s “suffering” from Aspergers, with its “compulsions” which, it was implied, bordered on mental illness or even intellectual disability, and that he should be let off all charges because of this – “poor chap, he can’t help it”, sort of thing. Most aspies greeted this with a resigned roll of the eyes – or irritation that was suppressed in the interest of getting the case widely known.

The attitude of the aspie community, however, has always been  -

(a) that the facts of the case didn’t warrant the serious criminal charges that were laid (and to give them their due, the media did push this line too),

(b) that the ‘hard-line’ attitude of the Police was the result, we had reason to believe, of an attitude within the Police that autistic people are “nuisances”, and that consequently they wanted to “make an example” out of Arie.

Think on it. To be guilty of ‘burglary’ implies pretty much all of the following –

(i) going on to private property (house, shop, factory, etc)

(ii) with criminal intent

(iii) to take something valuable

(iv) for pecuniary advantage.

Only the first applies in this case – and given that the property had lain abandoned and empty for some time even before the two earthquakes, Arie can be forgiven for assuming that it was no different to taking stuff from a tip, a rubbish skip (dumpster, for any Americans), or a demolition site. Even Michael, in following him in to the building, was concerned for Arie’s safety, not any possible illegality. I’m sure it wasn’t till the police suddenly swooped in, that this possibility occurred to either of them.

So if the ‘crime’ was so minor, why then did the police continue to take a hard and uncompromising line? Why, even after the real story was known, and even after the owners indicated they didn’t want to press charges, did the police continue to pursue such a trivial case, that normally wouldn’t even have seen charges laid? If it was ‘looters’ they were wanting to ‘make an example of’, why did they not choose someone like those who stole generators being used by emergency services? When have their faces, their names, been paraded in front of the media? The initial ‘over-excitement’ (with the exception of the assaults, etc) can be forgiven in the circumstances (residents of Christchurch describe the city during this period as “like a war zone”). But the unyielding insistence of the police on some very serious charges, for a very minor offense, has to raise equally serious questions about the police attitude towards Arie in particular, and autistic people in general.

Power and Responsibility

When I was a child, my father had a lot of little sayings. One of them was “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” We all know examples of how that works, from Mugabe’s thugs to Abu Ghraib, from Clinton’s “I did not have sex with that woman” to the shenanigans at Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World. Further back in history, there was Hitler and Idi Amin and Watergate. It’s gotten so that we almost expect corruption of some sort in large companies and high places. The more power that’s on offer, the more likely it is that it will go to someone’s head – or simply attract the potentially corrupt (and violent).

My father also had another little saying that was the flip side of the above – “responsibility ennobles, and absolute responsibility ennobles absolutely”. The problem with that in today’s world is that while many seek power, very few seem willing to take responsibility. Whenever the excrement hits the fan, whoever has that power, they are never somehow to blame, at least in their own eyes. Ass-covering has become almost automatic. Many years ago, when the Cave Creek disaster happened, I remember a very apt cartoon, which had various ministers, reps of government departments, etc, etc, all standing around in a circle pointing the finger at the next person in line and chanting in chorus “It’s his fault!” If anyone does take the blame, it’s usually some low-ranked subordinate offered up as a sacrificial lamb, or, in a few rare instances, some figurehead executive falls on their sword – “my department, my responsibility” sort of thing (this seems to be happening for Murdoch executives at the moment). Meanwhile, in the middle ranks, things go on as usual, the ‘culture’ of the place unchanged, or at most simply concealed better.

Most recently, I’ve seen this in action in our police force. Now I’m not slagging off the police in general. I’ve even met some nice ones. But there is a culture, or sub-culture if you like, within the force, of ‘bully boys’. As I’ve said in a previous post, I saw this ‘back in the day’, but had thought it was a thing of the past. Even such things as the Louise Nicholas case, I thought were simply hangovers from that past. But the Arie Smith-Voorkamp case has proved me wrong. Again, I am NOT saying all police are like this. But I do think that those who are, are being protected by their colleagues and superiors. NZ police, like many police forces around the world, tend to have a kind of ‘siege mentality’, where because of constant dealing with criminals, they often come to assume just about everybody who’s not a cop is guilty of something. They come to believe all their actions justified, and see themselves as pretty much ‘alone against the world’, and any criticism of them is ‘pandering to the crims’. They seem to believe if they admit to wrong-doing on the part of one of their own, it will not just tarnish their image, but lessen their ability to ‘catch the bad guys’. Somehow, they believe for that to happen, they must appear perfect. Cue ass-covering, denial of ‘aggro’ in courts and media, refusal to back down, etc, etc. The modern philosophy of refusal to take responsibility only feeds into this.

Let me digress for a minute. My daughter has been surrounded by unconditional love from the moment she was born. My only child, she is the ‘apple of my eye’. She also has strong, close bonds with extended family members, especially her grandmother. But if she when young had ever committed some serious wrong-doing – eg if she had ever shoplifted – I would, firstly, have ripped her a new one, and secondly, hauled her back to the shop by the scruff of her neck and made her return the goods and apologise to the shopkeeper or manager – publicly. Her grandmother would have given her an “I’m-so-disappointed-in-you” talk, and other family members would also have strongly voiced their disapproval. And she knew it too. Did she ever steal anything? Not flaming likely!!! In fact on one occasion when she was about ten or eleven, when a (so-called) friend tried to persuade her to go to a local shop and pinch stuff, she hotly refused, and stomped off home. The other girl went to the shop – and promptly got caught stealing, my daughter smugly informed me the next day.

The point I’m trying to make is that even if there are strong bonds (as police, army units, etc tend to develop), it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to approve, publicly or privately, of all each others’ actions. Nor is necessarily destructive to those bonds if one of the group is ‘hauled across the coals’ for those actions. If you think, well, that’s family, a police force is somewhat different, I suggest you look across the Tasman, to the New South Wales Police. This force was plagued by rampant corruption for decades. It was only through the stubborn efforts of dedicated people both within and outside the force that this was finally exposed and (hopefully, mostly) put an end to. Did this, at the time, damage the image of the force in the eyes of the Australian public? Undoubtedly. Does this same public now has greater confidence that their police are far less likely to be corrupt? I haven’t spoken to any Australians on the subject, but I’d be willing to bet on it.

So maybe I’m just a naïve aspie. But surely, if anyone refuses to take responsibility for their actions, insists they “didn’t do anything wrong”, lies about it, evades the truth, or stubbornly insists on the wrong-doing of others to divert attention away from their own, the more their image is likely to go down in other people’s eyes. If the police would own up, however, to occasionally ‘going over the top’ out of misplaced zealousness or righteous anger, or to a ‘misjudgement’ in how they prosecute a case, yes, a short-term dip in their image will almost certainly happen. But in the long run – after all the media hype died down - that image would surely be enhanced. “Well, hey, they’ve done wrong sometimes, but they’re man enough to own up to it, and try to put things right.” That sort of thing. Further evasion of responsibility etc, though, can only damage their image in the eyes of all the public, not just those with Aspergers.

But I admit, I’m not holding my breath it’s going to happen any time soon. This attitude seems entrenched in the police, and there are likely to be more Aries, not necessarily with Aspergers, but undoubtedly from some vulnerable group or another. I’d be willing to bet on that too.

Two Lightbulbs, an Aspie and The Police

A case that has been in the news here in New Zealand recently is that of a young man with Aspergers, whose name is Cornelius Arie Smith-Voorkamp, known to his friends as Arie. Arie’s ‘special interest’ is all things electrical, especially light fittings and switches, the older the better. He has been collecting them for years. He often removes them from old, abandoned houses, shops, etc, usually asking the permission of the owners first. However on one occasion he did not, and what happened next is what has been in the news.

Arie for some time had been aware of an abandoned building, formerly a shop, near his home in Christchurch, NZ, which had been badly damaged during the earthquake of September 2010. He could see some light switches that looked interesting, even compelling, to him. One evening he decided to go in to the half-wrecked building and get them. His partner, Michael, was with him at the time, and tried to persuade him not to go in, but Arie was in the grip of an Aspie obsession, and nothing could stop him.

When he got into the building, however, he saw that the switch was not of a sort he wanted, so looked around, and saw a couple of light bulbs he found interesting instead. He thought they would look good on his mantelpiece. So he started to undo them. Michael had now followed him in, still trying to get him to come out of the dangerous building. At this point, things suddenly and abruptly went wrong. The police came by, saw the light of Arie’s torch, and came rushing in.

Now I should add here that this was just a few days after the Big Christchurch Quake of February 22^nd 2011, in which 181 people were killed, and most of the Christchurch CBD and numerous other buildings were wrecked. Looters had already been preying on the vulnerable, parts of the city were under curfew and military-style lockdown, and emotions were running high. So it’s natural the cops should be on high alert. It was Arie’s misfortune, or bad timing, that it should all occur when he was in the grip of his obsession.

But this does not excuse what happened next – the young men were seized, thrown to the ground and handcuffed, with being given a chance to explain what they were doing there. Arie panicked, probably on the verge of meltdown, as he didn’t understand what was going on, and why the police – sworn to uphold the law and help people – were treating him like this. He was yelling that the handcuffs were tight enough already, as they were pulling them even tighter. A burly policeman (Arie is of slight build) had his knee on Arie’s back. Michael then saw one of the cops elbow Arie heavily in the face. Arie himself remembers a ‘blow to the back of his head’, after which he blacked out temporarily. His stutter (which comes on him in stress) was mocked and jeered at, and his attempts to tell them he has Aspergers were ignored.

Arie and Michael were arrested, hauled up before a judge the next day, and accused of burglary. The case made the news and Arie’s bruised and battered face was plastered all over the national media as ‘the face of looting’. He was in jail for over a week, an experience he now looks back on with fear and horror. So far, the actions of the police (barring the assault and mocking of course) might (JUST) be excused as excitability, given the other, and far more serious, looting going on at the time.

But it didn’t end there. Over the next few months, Arie has been back and forth from court, as the police have proceeded to ‘throw the book at him’. Despite now knowing full well about his Aspergers, and despite the repeated recommendations of several judges to the police to consider a diversion scheme for Arie instead of prosecution (an option for minor offenses in NZ), they have repeatedly refused any chance to defuse the whole matter. The case must now go to a defended trial, costing the taxpayers far more of course. They have also strenuously denied the assault, despite his obvious injuries seen by all on national television and in newspapers, claiming that as Arie hasn’t filed a complaint, “no assault can have taken place”. Arie has his reasons for not filing a complaint, not the least of which is his new fear of the police, and they are valid. It’s entirely possible that such a complaint would be an extremely stressful waste of time anyway, given that the police tend to ‘close ranks’ and protect their own, even when they have obviously done wrong. The police have also denied that army personnel were with them at the time, which is not supported by the statements of Arie and Michael. [16th July update - I've noticed the latest police statement says that no army personnel were 'involved in the apprehension of' Arie and Michael. A nice bit of official hair-splitting, which gives them wriggle-room to say later, well, (cough, cough) they were there but they didn't actually arrest anyone... Also, it's worth noting that Michael was also assaulted, and charged, and will be coming up in court the same day as Arie, the 28th July.]
[Further update - the case has been postponed till later in August, as a freak snowstorm meant Arie couldn't get to a court-ordered psych appointment. So still not resolved, and still hoping sense will prevail in the end.]

Oh, and the objects he ‘burgled’? Two light bulbs, worth about $2 at the local supermarket. The owners of the building, a Mr and Mrs Matsis, were not contacted by police until quite late in this saga, after a team of reporters for TV1’s Sunday program tracked them down and told them what was going on. They were horrified, and made it plain they did not want to press charges, being more concerned about the safety of the young men going into the building than a pair of cheap light bulbs. Arie, with a team from Sunday, went to their house and apologised to them for entering their property and taking the bulbs. The apology was accepted, and it was a very amicable meeting. A short documentary on the whole case with Arie and Michael’s testimony appeared on TV1’s Sunday program this past Sunday, the 10^th of July. The reaction of the police? When they heard about it, they first approached Mr and Mrs Matsis and ‘persuaded’ them to ‘let the courts handle it’. (The Matsis’ however, later told the Sunday team they still hope for Arie to be acquitted.) The next step was that the police told the Sunday team that they are now under criminal investigation also!!! (Read this story - http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10737782 )

So what are we to make of all this? It seems the police are determined to ‘make an example’ of Arie. There were far more serious cases of looting that could have been used for this, including those who stole generators being used by emergency services, or those who broke into homes or buildings left temporarily empty, and took valuables and money. So why pick on Arie especially? There are grounds for believing that the police might have a very negative attitude to anyone with Aspergers, regarding them as a ‘nuisance’; and that Police HQ in Wellington (our capital) might be insisting on a ‘hard line’ being taken with anyone with Aspergers. Now, I am not saying that all police feel like this. I am not even saying that all police are aggressive and liable to beat up offenders. But it does seem they cannot admit they made a simple mistake, or that they were over-eager to ‘prove themselves’ and ‘catch those bastard looters’. No apology has been offered, and it doesn’t look like it ever will be. The attitude of the relevant government minister doesn’t seem too good either – she was reported as saying she hoped he would be ‘locked up for a long time – with a cellmate’. The implications of that are chilling.

Another serious implication of this case is the Sunday team being investigated. This should also send a chill down the spine of anyone who believes in a free press as an essential part of a truly democratic society. So why are the police attempting to silence this investigation? Why are they refusing to admit they got it wrong? Are they that determined to deny the egg on their faces, that they must force through the courts a serious conviction charge on a young man whose only previous involvement with the law was a reprimand for not wearing a helmet when he was biking (a legal requirement in NZ)? Can they not just be ‘man enough’ to admit they made a mistake, and substitute a lesser charge instead? To say “Sorry guys, we got it wrong, this isn’t a Big Bad Looting Criminal after all”? It seems not.

I must admit here, my own attitudes towards the police were formed back in the 80s, when I took part in many anti-racism protests. I witnessed cops commit appalling violence towards protestors, and blatantly lie about it in court. I heard their jeering comments, and saw their obvious prejudices towards blacks, women and gays. It shocked me so much that for months after the Springbok Tour protests back in 1981, if I saw a policeman in the street I would start to shake, and want to vomit. I know the fear Arie now feels. But that was nearly 30 years ago. I thought that with a younger, better trained and more aware generation of cops, that the nasty ‘police culture’ of that time was history. But it seems only the objects of their derision and prejudice have changed, not the attitudes themselves. This is a sad indictment on our police force, the government attitudes and policies behind them, and the behaviour of those individual police and army personnel who were there. I am disappointed in my own country, and that’s a heavy thing to have to say. The only thing to moderate that disappointment is the numbers who have come out in support of Arie and Michael, which is immensely heart-warming to see.

This case is not over yet. Watch this space. Better yet, watch the program, and judge for yourself. http://tvnz.co.nz/sunday/s2011-e19-video-4292608

The Sunday program also has a Facebook page, if you want to make comments, at https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/SundayTVNZ