Statement of Solidarity with Victims of Police Violence in Ferguson

Author: National Council on Disability
Published: 2014/09/10 - Updated: 2025/02/06
Publication Type: Announcement
Topic: Americas - Publications List

Page Content: Synopsis - Introduction - Main

Synopsis: National Council on Disability (NCD) joins the legion of civil rights and civic organizations to call for greater justice and accountability.

Why it matters: This statement from the National Council on Disability (NCD) addresses the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and highlights broader issues of racial profiling, police brutality, and systemic discrimination, particularly against African American men with disabilities. The NCD emphasizes the increased risk of violence that individuals with disabilities face during police encounters and advocates for measures such as the End Racial Profiling Act (ERPA), improved crisis intervention training, and enhanced mental health services. This information is valuable for policymakers, law enforcement agencies, and disability advocates seeking to understand and address the intersection of disability and systemic injustice - Disabled World (DW).

Introduction

On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown, an unarmed African American teen, was shot and killed by a police officer. The disproportionate and militarized response by law enforcement in response to non-violent protests and peaceful assembly by residents of Ferguson gained attention from around the world including alarm from the United Nations. That same month, Kajime Powell and Ezell Ford, both unarmed African American men were fatally shot by police, raising additional concerns about the ways police officers respond to individuals with disabilities-particularly African American men with disabilities.

Main Item

The National Council of Disability (NCD), an independent federal agency that advises the President, Congress, and other federal agencies about policies, programs, practices, and procedures that affect people with disabilities, joins the legion of civil rights and civic organizations to call for greater justice and accountability.

NCD recognizes that these tragic events are part of a larger social pattern involving racial profiling, police brutality, inequality, systemic racism, and segregation in addition to the marginalization and discrimination of people with disabilities and supports the Department of Justice investigation into the death of Michael Brown. The End Racial Profiling Act (ERPA), currently under consideration by the United States House of Representatives, would prohibit the use of profiling on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin or religion by law enforcement agencies.

As David Perry and NCD's Lawrence Carter-Long detailed in an article for The Atlantic last May, "encounters with police have also taken an unnecessarily violent turn for people with disabilities that are not psychiatric or intellectual, including conditions that are physical or sensory" making disabled individuals at increased risk for incarceration, harassment, violence or death at the hands of law enforcement.

We recognize that potential solutions such as usage of body and dashboard cameras by police, better crisis intervention training, more diverse, improved mental health services and supports, reform of the criminal justice system and increased citizen oversight and accountability at the local level are solutions that address specific issues rather than societal attitudes toward race and/or disability. But concrete steps, even if incremental, must be taken.

NCD has written extensively over its 36-year history on the intersections of disability and the criminal justice system; dependency courts; crime victimization; child welfare, mental health systems; and education systems. In 2011, NCD hosted a regional policy forum in Portland, Oregon, during which we hosted panel discussions with leaders from state departments of corrections, mental health courts, and police departments on topics including law enforcement models and mental health courts; transitions back to the community following incarceration for people with psychiatric disabilities; and forging police/community advocacy relationships that assist in deescalating crisis moments and preventing tragedies. And in the wake of many of the recent mass shootings, NCD has offered advice to Congress, the Vice President, and the President as each has engaged related topics.

Our communities rely on law enforcement to address situations of varying complexity in an attempt to ensure public safety. In instances involving people with disabilities, it is essential that law enforcement develop cultural competence about disability in the same manner as a local police department would seek to develop cultural competence about an immigrant population with particular customs and language within its precinct.

As a starting point, NCD's Executive Director Rebecca Cokley offered these recommendations to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Law Enforcement Responses to People with Disabilities in written testimony last April:

It is inadvisable, if not impossible, to equate or compare the kinds of experiences that one community might have with police brutality with that of another. Still, in an increasingly interconnected world, any action that harms one community ultimately hurts us all. To paraphrase Rinku Sen, all people of color are 'not in the same boat,' and neither are all people with disabilities.

Justice for everyone is a fundamental commitment of NCD's. We believe that demonstrable progress will come as a result of improved cultural competence through law enforcement trainings; greater investment in a spectrum of mental health; and involvement of and relationships with the disability community by law enforcement.

NCD stands ready to be of additional service to anyone working for the common good who shares the goals of equal participation, protection and due process for all.

Attribution/Source(s): This quality-reviewed publication was selected for publishing by the editors of Disabled World (DW) due to its relevance to the disability community. Originally authored by National Council on Disability and published on 2014/09/10, this content may have been edited for style, clarity, or brevity. For further details or clarifications, National Council on Disability can be contacted at ncd.gov NOTE: Disabled World does not provide any warranties or endorsements related to this article.

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Cite This Page: National Council on Disability. (2014, September 10 - Last revised: 2025, February 6). Statement of Solidarity with Victims of Police Violence in Ferguson. Disabled World (DW). Retrieved March 26, 2025 from www.disabled-world.com/news/america/solidarity.php

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