Douglas County Sheriff’s Office Deputies Trained in Autism Awareness
Submitted by Deputy Cocha Heyden
Public Information Officer
Douglas County Sheriff’s Office
303-660-7586
Deputies for the Patrol and Detention Divisions as well as officers from the Lone Tree, Castle Rock and Parker Police Department have received training on Autism Awareness.
Many times deputies and officers have been called to situations that involve a person; child or adult, that may be acting “strangely” or even been described as “drunk” or having some sort of “mental illness”. The training helped teach deputies and officers; what Autism is, how to recognize the behaviors and how to de-escalate the anxiety autistic persons may have when coming into contact with Law Enforcement Officers.
At this point the Sheriffs Office is still working on developing a data base that has information, which can assist deputies when they respond to a particular address. We will likely be reaching out to the public and the Autistic community in the near future, to seek out suggestions how we can better meet their needs and how best to collect the pertinent information to assist responding deputies.
