Virtual reality helps police deal with people with autism

WASHINGTON (AP) – An autistic man walks out of a store without paying for a toy that he picked up. He is followed by a trader demanding that he return to the interior. The situation escalates quickly and the police are called.

Officers arrive, their flashing patrol car lights and sirens sounding, to find the man in the parking lot, shouting and not responding to their orders. They have the choice: to confront the man and risk seeing the situation become violent or regroup to find a different approach.

The scenario is part of a virtual reality simulation for the police developed by Axon – the best-known company to develop the Taser – so that agents can learn to interact with people with autism and defuse situations that could quickly degenerate. Developmental disorder that may involve varying degrees of language and social impairment, often including repetitive behaviors. In 2018, the US government estimated that about 1 in 40 children had autism.

This week, the company announced a partnership with the Chicago Police to train officers with the help of virtual reality headsets. It will put the program, developed with the help of experts in mental health and autism, at the disposal of the United States police service.

For now, they offer two training modules: one for autism and the other for people with schizophrenia.

"The ability to tell the difference between a person who acts in an unusual way and who might be due to his autism and someone who could be a risk to you can be a very fine line," said David Kearon of the advocacy group. Autism Speaks Rights. "When you try to make this judgment very quickly, it is there that we find errors."

Officers wear helmets similar to those used for video games and are immediately immersed in a virtual reality training ground. With a small remote control, they can choose the scenario and go through each training scenario in about five minutes.

In the autism scenario, agents first discover it from the point of view of the autistic person, watching the storekeeper's approach with anger and moving away from the toy robot to tell him that he has to pay. The police are called and the officers arrive and confront him.

They can then play from the point of view of the police, observing signs that someone might be autistic.

A radio call on the radio reports of an aggressive man suspected of stealing shoplifting and fighting with an employee. Policemen park to find the man on the parking lot, holding the toy and waving his arms. They introduce themselves and ask the man what is happening. He does not answer.

"We need you to calm down!" an officer says to the man who knocks his head and speaks incoherently.

Agents can then choose to talk to their partner or get closer and confront the man.

Officers are taught that flashing lights and sirens can be overly stimulating and that turning them off would be enough to improve the situation. They are also encouraged to stay calm, to avoid physically confronting the person and to hire specially trained mental health crisis team staff, if their service is available.

The training can also create "a feeling of empathy" and insist that other methods, such as shouting or grabbing a suspect, "can hyper-escalate an autistic person," said Rick Smith, Founder and CEO of Axon, in an interview with The Associated Press. .

"Rather than just teaching the police how to use a Taser, we should perhaps teach them to avoid using it," he said.

Police services, large and small, struggled to respond to calls involving people with autism.

In Graham, Texas, about 195 km west of Dallas, a 19-year-old man threw stones at his neighbor's fence. The autistic teen, Michael Moore, had difficulty communicating with the police officers interviewed, who then guessed that he was perhaps drunk or drunk. They tried to make him undergo a sobriety test on the ground and, when he failed, they came to stop him. A fight ensues. A camera on the body shows the teenager, whose mother says that he has a form of "very functional" autism, that he was filmed with a Taser and thrown to the ground.

"When the police approached him, he tried to keep in touch," said his mother, Tracie Brown. "It's very difficult for autistic people."

"His hands were visible at all times and he kept saying," My mother is inside. Let me go get my mother "and for some reason, the police refused to check," she said.

Brent Bullock, acting chief of Graham, said his 25 officers had been trained in autism after the incident and had field guides to determine if a person could be autistic or was suffering from pain. a mental health crisis.

"I think it was a positive thing," he said. Since then, his officers have met similar situations and managed to defuse them, Bullock said.

Axon plans to provide free autism training for the purchase of Taser devices. Hundreds of law enforcement agencies are already using the company's other products, such as the Tasers and the Body Camera.

The virtual reality experience may be more effective for officers than conventional training, Smith said, as officers may feel it would be on the other side of the meeting and more likely to 'in memory.

"By taking them through this training, we give officers a chance to learn through experience, which is, we know, a much more effective way than just trying to remember a checklist that may have been taught to them at the academy, "Smith said.