I don’t think so. But still…“Fascinated with law enforcement,” ran the story in the Washington Post four months ago, “Robert Ethan Saylor would sometimes call 911 just to ask the dispatchers a question. He loved talking to police officers and was a loyal follower of the TV show ‘NCIS.’ Now, his death at age 26…”
Excuse me?
“… is the subject of a criminal investigation that has left those who knew him in his Frederick County community and those who didn’t around the country wondering: How did a young man with Down syndrome die in an encounter with the very people he idolized?”
“Good question, Dorothy!” as the Elmo that my almost-15-year-old still idolizes might say. Seems the guys and girls who’ve earned the badges in this particular mess didn’t know how to deal with someone our compassionate society decided to, as it kind of had to, let live.
“As officials tell it, Saylor had been watching Zero Dark Thirty at a Frederick movie theater last month and, as soon as it ended, wanted to watch it again. When he refused to leave, a theater employee called three off-duty Frederick County sheriff’s deputies who were working a security job at the Westview Promenade shopping center and told them that Saylor either needed to buy another ticket or be removed.
“What happened next is the subject of a probe by the Frederick County Bureau of Investigation.”
Alex has had a run-in or two with the police. Once during the Museum Mile celebration – blocks of open admissions and chalk drawing right on the asphalt of Fifth Avenue – Alex was walking with us when we reached the point where the museum celebration ended and the normal traffic began. He decided right there and then to bolt along the asphalt no one had marked with chalk.
And of course he bolted against the traffic, because that’s what our life is. An incredibly big cop still directing traffic at the intersection opened his arms like a Pterodactyl and scooped up Alex as if he was a leaf.
I’m sure the probe unearthed a story that was bathed in the wisdom of a society that knows how to treat through a lifetime those it choses in a medical moment to save. This story is old and new at once. Old because it happened a while ago and new because I’m sure Mr. Saylor is fine-
Oh wait, no. Scratch that.
I am too tired tending my leaf to find out what happened to Mr. Saylor. But he is dead I’m sure, a death no more the fault of his death than was his birth. We have a word for people like that.