Stafford County woman confronts issues of race, autism after son's arrest

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" Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the

world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. "

Way to go MOM for helping get that small group started!!! (article)

Stafford County woman confronts issues of race, autism after son's arrest

By Theresa Vargas

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, July 11, 2010; C01

This much is not debated: 18-year-old Reginald Cornelius Latson was sitting

outside a library in Stafford County, waiting for it to open. To someone, he

looked suspicious.

The confrontation with police that followed probably would not have attracted

much notice if the teen's mother, , hadn't launched an Internet

campaign linking her son's arrest to two social flash points: autism and racial

profiling.

" What she has done has absolutely blown my mind, " said Mark Bell, a civil rights

consultant in Atlanta who has seen other parents stand up for their kids, but " I

have not seen one person with the tenacity that she has. "

By tenacity, he means 's campaign for attention to her son's case. The

effort has spread to Facebook, Twitter and an online petition that has collected

more than 1,500 signatures. Some supporters are parents of autistic children

like Latson, who was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome in eighth grade, and

others are African Americans drawn to the story of a black teenager who was

arrested after an encounter with a police officer in a majority-white county.

Together, says, the two groups are doing what she couldn't have done

alone: They've turned a case into a cause.

" I'm not a helpless person and so I have to do what I have to do to save my

son's life, " said , a defense contractor who served in the military for

11 years. " I'm so afraid he's going to be damaged beyond repair. "

In the family's home in the exurbs of Northern Virginia, a picture of Latson,

whom calls " Neli, " rests on a Bible next to a white candle on the

fireplace mantel. A similar display sits on the dresser in his bedroom, where

sailboats float atop blue painted walls, a color his mother picked to be

calming.

Both candles have burned since May 24, the morning Latson left home and never

returned.

An eventful day

It wasn't unusual for him to go on long walks, so his mother didn't immediately

worry when he wasn't in his room at 6:30 a.m. But when he wasn't home by 10:30

a.m., she called the Stafford sheriff's office to report her son missing. That's

when she discovered they had him in custody.

The sheriff's office says it received a call at 8:37 a.m. reporting a

" suspicious male, possibly in possession of a gun, " sitting on the grass outside

Porter Library, across from an elementary school. Officers were dispatched, a

search was launched and more than a half-dozen schools were put into lockdown.

What happened next remains unclear.

Authorities gave this account: About 20 minutes into the search, Deputy

Calverley, the resource officer at a nearby high school, saw Latson and noticed

that he matched the description of the suspicious man. Asked for identification,

the teenager began " to attack and assault the deputy for no apparent reason. "

Latson struck the deputy several times. The officer unloaded pepper spray on the

teen, who wrestled the container away and sprayed the officer. Latson then ran.

Other officers found Latson in the nearby woods and the deputy on the ground

with a head laceration, cuts and a broken ankle that would require surgery.

Latson, through his mother, offers a different version: He got bored waiting for

the library to open, so he left. When the deputy confronted him, Latson

submitted to a search. He had no weapon. The deputy addressed him with racial

slurs, and the teenager accused the deputy of harassing him. When Latson turned

to walk away, the deputy grabbed him from behind and started choking him. Latson

was kicked, Tasered and pepper-sprayed before running away.

Latson is charged with malicious wounding of a law enforcement officer, assault

and battery, and disarming an officer. A sheriff's office spokesman said

Calverley remains on medical leave; the spokesman declined further comment

because the investigation is ongoing.

" When this case goes to court, it will become abundantly clear that not only did

the deputy who was assaulted act in a completely professional and appropriate

manner, " said Sheriff E. Jett, " but all the law enforcement personnel

involved in this incident acted in a professional and appropriate manner. "

, who has filed a complaint against the sheriff's office with the U.S.

Department of Justice, said she was not allowed to see her son until a few days

after his arrest. After 11 days in jail, Latson was transferred to a psychiatric

hospital to determine if he was fit to stand trial. He didn't understand why he

was there or why he was with people threatening suicide and talking to

themselves, said, but she thinks the hospital was better than the

alternative. On Wednesday, she broke down after learning that her son was being

returned to jail.

" This is not right, " she said. " I do not believe my son can mentally handle

being in prison. "

A different kind of life

Raising Neli has not been easy, said. He has changed schools several

times, finding it difficult to thrive either in a large public school or in a

special-needs school where many students faced more severe challenges. His

mother said he tends to see the world literally; for example, he can't read

between the lines enough to understand what " clean the kitchen " means. He has to

be told to wash the dishes, wipe the counters, sweep the floors.

His eighth-grade wrestling coach, Emison, said Latson was a gifted

athlete, but it was clear he was different. Bus trips to matches could get

chaotic, but Latson would sit in the front, put on his wrestling headgear and

stare out the window quietly. Emison recalled how, like many autistic children,

Latson was sensitive to physical contact. " Don't touch me, " he told the coach's

wife once when she patted him on the shoulder to congratulate him after a match.

Emison thinks that neither Latson nor the officer knew what they were getting

into. " I don't believe it was his intent to inflict injury, " he said of Latson.

" It was to stop this guy from putting his hands on him. "

acknowledges that no one can know exactly what happened between her

son and the officer. But at the core of her fight, and the reason strangers are

listening, are two issues she said authorities should consider: Her son has

Asperger's, which makes it difficult for him to read social situations, and the

incident started because of someone's assumptions upon seeing a black man

sitting outside a library. In a news release after the incident, authorities

said no weapon was found, and further investigation revealed that the original

caller had never seen a gun.

" If you see a black man sitting outside a library and then you initially assume

that he has a gun, that's a problem, " Bell said. If Latson had been white, he

said, " there would not have been a call. "

On 's Web site -- http://avoiceforneli.com -- strangers have left

comments arguing, for example, that Latson is " a victim of SWB, sitting while

black. "

Meanwhile, Vokoun, who lives in Arizona, has posted Latson's story on

national e-mail groups for parents of autistic children. She became an advocate

for autistic young adults after her son, 18 and diagnosed with Asperger's, was

arrested after a friend placed a fake bomb in his backpack. Police tend not to

recognize symptoms of autism, she said, and confrontations leading to jail can

reverse progress young people have made.

" It's like having a child in a shell, and moms do their very best to chip away

at that shell to make the crack bigger so they can pull their child out, " she

said. " When something like this happens, that shell becomes so thick that you've

wasted years on recovery. "

Vokoun said parents struggle between protecting their autistic children and

giving them autonomy. " You want him to be able to go out to parties, do the

things other 18-year-olds do, " she said. " Yet you can't trust he'll make the

right decision when he's there. "

The law says Latson is an adult now, but in his bedroom, a teddy bear perches on

a shelf, football trophies from middle school line his nightstand, and Christmas

cards from his grandmother sit next to the candle that his mother keeps burning

-- and will until he comes home.

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