Vacaville Police Officer Jeremy Johnson and system designer, says he’s been working on a program to help Vacaville police with incidents involving special needs people for months and that it’s most certainly personal.
Johnson, 32, is the school resource officer at William C. High School and the father of a child with autism. He says autism has become a huge part of his life and understands the challenges families of children with special needs face.
“I have a 6-year-old son with autism. He was clinically diagnosed with autism about two years ago,” Johnson said. “And this is a program that my son will benefit from. And I hope many other families will benefit from.”
So, he’s developing a system which allows families to fill out a form of information about their children and loved ones disabilities, photos, and addresses. If first responders are called out for an emergency, they’ll have more information to respond appropriately.
“If they’re scared of loud sounds, bright lights, if we’re driving around in our patrol cars, with our lights on, on the loud speaker, it’s going to be counterproductive,” said Johnson. “It’s going to cause that person to hide.”
Along with the database Johnson hopes to launch soon, he has also spearheaded autism awareness training for the department.
“If they know the person has autism but they don’t know how to interact with somebody with autism, the information is not as valuable,” Johnson said.
All Vacaville officers have been trained on verbal, social, and physical cues that a person with a developmental disability may show. The department also has been trained on crisis intervention, used for responding to incidents where a person is mentally ill.
As for the scope of the need for the community, he says there are more than 200 students with autism just in the Vacaville School District.
Johnson doesn’t have an exact timeline when the program will be open to the public, but says he hopes to begin accepting information soon.
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