Fox, Greenville, SC: Training police about autism/mental illness

Jan 16, 2024, Fox Carolina, Greenville, SC: Autism training for police https://www.foxcarolina.com/video/2024/01/16/autism-training-police/

The South Carolina chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness…conducts mental illness training including right here in the upstate.

Clemson police requested a full week of training to help them respond to calls in the community.

Fox Carolina photojournalist Enrique Salinas is showing us what officers learned about recognizing autism signs and mental illness.

Speaker from the SC Department of Disabilities and Special Needs:

Today I’m going to talk to you about autism.

What’s really important about this entire week, they learn a lot about things they had no idea existed before.

A lot of our folks in this room raised their hand and they know somebody with autism.

So 30 to 50 percent of our folks don’t speak, but communicate in other ways. That was new information to this crowd. …

Officer:

One of the biggest things I learned from Ms. Turner …was how to communicate with the autistic personnel.

There was a complex questioning, a moderate questioning and simple questioning…

Then end of the coverage was about dealing with mentally ill individuals, which seemed a part of the training on autism.