Cops Kill Man with Down Syndrome

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

The Baltimore County Medical Examiner's office has ruled that a 26-year-old man with Down syndrome died by homicide while in police custody. Robert Saylor, of New Market, was asphyxiated on Jan. 12 when three deputies alleged he was resisting arrest. Saylor was at a movie theater with a health aide and refused to leave the theater after watching Zero Dark Thirty because he wanted to see it again, police said. "He has never had anyone put their hands on him in their life," said his mother, Patti Saylor. "He would not have been doing anything threatening to anybody."

Posted by Alexandrite at 08:32 PM | 33 COMMENTS | permalink | Comment on This Entry |

Front Page
Breaking News
Comments
Flagged Comments
User Blogs
Write a Blog Entry
Create a Poll
Edit Account
Weekly Digest
Stats Page
RSS Feed
Back Page

Subscriptions

Read the Retort using RSS.

RSS Feed

Author Info

Alexandrite

Joined 2004/05/11
Visited 2013/05/20

Status: user

Activist Re-Jailed Over Prison Blog Post (17 comments) ...

Cops Kill Man with Down Syndrome (33 comments) ...

Why the media should stop releasing the names of shooters (1 comments) ...

Comments

Admin's note: Participants in this discussion must follow the site's moderation policy. Personal attacks, profanity, abusive conduct and expressions of prejudice are not allowed. If you have comments about site moderation, contact the site publisher in email.

Normally I would call a BS on the homicide and say accidental. But after what the Doner manhunt revealed of police tactics I wonder why they are still on the job.

#2 | Posted by patron at 2013-02-18 08:26 PM | Reply | Flag:

Most police I have met can't wait to kill a retarded person

Untrue, or you'd already be dead, diablo.

#3 | Posted by Alexandrite at 2013-02-18 08:36 PM | Reply | Flag:

And this website would be dead, Alexandrite!

#4 | Posted by Diablo at 2013-02-18 08:51 PM | Reply | Flag:

I won't hold my breath as to whether anything will be done about this.

#5 | Posted by jpw at 2013-02-18 09:51 PM | Reply | Flag:

And this website would be dead, Alexandrite!

#4 | POSTED BY DIABLO

And yet you continue to post, how..uhm, retarded .;P

#7 | Posted by Lohocla at 2013-02-19 12:01 PM | Reply | Flag:

Some cops are fine, others are thugs - and I find it odd they couldn't figure out this guy had Down syndrome.

#8 | Posted by Doc_Sarvis at 2013-02-19 12:07 PM | Reply | Flag:

Some cops are fine, others are thugs - and I find it odd they couldn't figure out this guy had Down syndrome.

#8 | Posted by Doc_Sarvis

Why do you find that odd? If that had functioning brains they wouldn't become cops.

The fine:thug ratio of cops is probably about 1:9

Most are littledick bullies who need a gun on their hip to feel like a man.

#9 | Posted by SpeakSoftly at 2013-02-19 09:01 PM | Reply | Flag:

I once knew a guy with down syndrome.

He wasn't a bad guy but one day he got angry and not only set fire to a building but attacked the cops when they arrived.

#10 | Posted by Tor at 2013-02-19 09:16 PM | Reply | Flag:

The cops were in mortal danger.

FLAG: retard strength.

#11 | Posted by dean_buvia at 2013-02-19 09:20 PM | Reply | Flag:

I completely agree. I have a close family member with Down Syndrome as well as have worked with many others with the disabilty and it is very easy to identify an individual with the disabilty just by looking at their face. Police are also taught in training to never leave someone handcuffed on their stomach. They are trained to place them on their side. There was no excuse for what happened.

#12 | Posted by mrmartin at 2013-02-19 10:31 PM | Reply | Flag:

Dang! My sarcastic comment on cops got bumped. I thought it was not offensive at all.

#13 | Posted by Diablo at 2013-02-20 01:59 AM | Reply | Flag:

"Most are littledick bullies who need a gun on their hip to feel like a man."

Its NOT the gun that makes them feel like a "man". Its the Posstion and the power trip/abuses that come with it. The Thin BLue Wall does its part too.

#14 | Posted by GotTruth at 2013-02-20 02:36 AM | Reply | Flag:

He deserved to die, because he only paid to see the movie once.

Welcome to our Facist police State brought to you by the Right (Libertarians excepted). Obama is a closet Rethuglican whose headquarters served as the nerve center for well co-ordinated Coast to Coast attack on Occupy Wall Street protestors. OWS hit the nail on the head alarming the people in charge.

#15 | Posted by nutcase at 2013-02-20 07:48 AM | Reply | Flag:

The guy had Down Syndrome, let him watch the freakin' movie again for goodness sake!

#16 | Posted by jwil72 at 2013-02-20 09:10 AM | Reply | Flag:

Pitiful story. The police are going to have a hard time justifying this.
On a side note... not to seem insensitive, but... why was a man with a developmental disability taken to a movie like "Zero Dark Thirty?"

#17 | Posted by cbob at 2013-02-20 09:57 AM | Reply | Flag:

www.facebook.com

If I was on FB I'd leave a message. Why aren't these officers being investigated and facing a public grand jury just as would any member of the general public in similar circumstances when such a death is ruled a homicide? Until we start seeing objective accountability in these situations we're in danger of ending up with a police force that potentially is more of a threat than a public service.

#18 | Posted by robson at 2013-02-20 10:15 AM | Reply | Flag:

Libs who find discrimination under every rock should be celebrating that a retard had an equal right to be shot by the cops.

#19 | Posted by fwthom at 2013-02-20 10:19 AM | Reply | Flag:

Libs who find discrimination under every rock should be celebrating that a retard had an equal right to be shot by the cops.

#19 | Posted by fwthom at 2013-02-20 10:19 AM | Reply | Flag:

Always there with a nonsensical comment, aren't ya? Oh well, at least you're consistent.

#20 | Posted by cbob at 2013-02-20 10:26 AM | Reply | Flag:

The cops should have surrounded the downie in a cabin and set it on fire.

#21 | Posted by JOE at 2013-02-20 10:30 AM | Reply | Flag:

in Orange County California his death would have been ruled a suicide.

#22 | Posted by AuntieSocial at 2013-02-20 10:40 AM | Reply | Flag:

"Welcome to our Facist police State brought to you by the Right (Libertarians excepted). Obama is a closet Rethuglican whose headquarters served as the nerve center for well co-ordinated Coast to Coast attack on Occupy Wall Street protestors. OWS hit the nail on the head alarming the people in charge."

That is indeed correct.

"Shannon McLeish of Florida is a 45-year-old married mother of two young children. She is a homeowner, a taxpayer and a safe driver. She votes in every election. She attends a Unitarian Universalist church on Sundays. She is also, like nearly all who have a relationship with the Occupy movement in the United States, being monitored by the federal government. She knows this because when she read FBI documents obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) through the Freedom of Information Act, she was startled to see a redaction that could only be referring to her. McLeish's story is the story of hundreds of thousands of people -- perhaps more -- whose lives are being invaded by the state. It is the story of a security and surveillance apparatus -- overseen by the executive branch under Barack Obama -- that has empowered the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to silence the voices and obstruct the activity of citizens who question corporate power. "

www.truthdig.com

#23 | Posted by nullifidian at 2013-02-20 11:17 AM | Reply | Flag:

Nulli,

Wonder how many posters here are being monitored...

Face it - we live in a police state. If you are known to be part of a 'movement' of any sort you are certainly being tracked.

#24 | Posted by GalaxiePete at 2013-02-20 11:32 AM | Reply | Flag:

Cops Kill Man with Down Syndrome

So they did him a favor.

#25 | Posted by ClownShack at 2013-02-20 11:58 AM | Reply | Flag:

There is no such thing as a good clown, A good Clowney, (Jadeveon) yes, but general all-purpose clowns no...nothing, a useless exercise in faux joviality that attracts hopeless pedophiles and/or mass murderers.

#26 | Posted by tontonmacoute at 2013-02-20 12:12 PM | Reply | Flag:

Clownshack's #25 I marked OFFENSIVE.

#27 | Posted by redlightrobot at 2013-02-20 01:51 PM | Reply | Flag:

The mistake we all make is pretending that the Democratic Party is different from the Repubs. At the core of each is a corporatist wing that have come to consider themselves as our rightful overlords. This steady erosion of our privacy and rights, is being done at the behest of government-corporate-media interests that own both the D/R.

The need to defend our rights must be DE-politized so we the people can regain the country that belongs to us, and not hand control to the corrupt greedy multinational corporations that have come to own our leaders.

Quoted in www.truthdig.com
"Anyone who defies corporate power, even if he or she is nonviolent and acting within constitutional rights, is a suspect. These documents are part of the plan to make us fearful, compliant and disempowered."

This desire for our dis-empowerment is also behind Obama's push for gun control because they know that an armed society by inference creates empowered citizens.

#28 | Posted by Robson at 2013-02-20 01:59 PM | Reply | Flag:

No, that is a false equivillancy. One party tries to defend the environment. The other fights against them, saying it's more important to defend profits. One party believes more in science and evidence, the base of the other party thinks science is a scam of the devil. These are just the start of a LONG list of differences between the parties. Repubs are simply so embarrassed of their party today, that it makes them feel better to say the dems are just as bad. When it's only minimally true.

You're right that both sides are captured by corparatists. But to say they are EQUALLY captured isn't true. Elizabeth Warren would not be allowed in the republican party.

As long as the choice is between two evils, I'll still take the LESSER evil, thank you.

And as I've said many times, the solution to corporate capture of our government is PUBLIC ELECTION FINANCING. Everything else is a waste of time.

#29 | Posted by SpeakSoftly at 2013-02-20 02:30 PM | Reply | Flag:

the police being tyrannical... color me surprised.

#30 | Posted by klifferd at 2013-02-20 03:29 PM | Reply | Flag:

#29 | Posted by SpeakSoftly at 2013-02-20 02:30 PM

I agree with much of what you say especially the need for public financing of elections and Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders too.

I also agree that the heart and soul of the GOP is corporatist and represents the worse of the two evils. But there is a substantial subset of the Dems that represent Wall St that are just as harmful, if not more so, to our national economy and the trendline towards fascism and loss of the right of the people to control the government.

The point I tried to make is the spotlight needs to be shined on corporate dominance of government and the need for protecting our Constitutional rights above the eternal political divide of left vs right. If that was done a significant part of the electorate could be carved out of both Parties with a singular purpose to right the wrong that is now taking place in America. Many organizations that espouse libertarian views and the need to protect our rights, often market themselves as Dem or liberal, such as ACLU, www.justiceonline.org etc..

The two Party system has kept us floundering and arguing amongst ourselves without a good political choice, while we lose everything to the elite and greedy few.

#31 | Posted by Robson at 2013-02-20 03:54 PM | Reply | Flag:

Normally I would call a BS on the homicide and say accidental. But after what the Doner manhunt revealed of police tactics I wonder why they are still on the job.

The murdering Dorner was killed before he could continue on with his murderous rampage and you are not happy with that?

#32 | Posted by phesterOBoyle at 2013-02-20 04:26 PM | Reply | Flag:

But there is a substantial subset of the Dems that represent Wall St that are just as harmful, if not more so, to our national economy and the trendline towards fascism and loss of the right of the people to control the government.
#31 | Posted by Robson

The problem is that a lot of those Dems are in states or districts that are "purple" and they can only be so progressive and still get elected. This is a "hearts and minds" problems. As long as reps can get elected by hollering "debt" "deficit" "welfare queen" "they want to take our guns", we'll have this problem.

#33 | Posted by WhoDaMan at 2013-02-20 04:48 PM | Reply | Flag:

Nulli,

Wonder how many posters here are being monitored...

Everything on the Internet is being monitored.

That's what the whole telecom immunity thing was about.

#34 | Posted by snoofy at 2013-02-20 04:50 PM | Reply | Flag:

#32 | Posted by phesterOBoyle

I believe the reference is not to Dorner's demise, but the LAPD's attack on two white women shot by police while delivering newspapers, who they mistook for a 270-pound black man. Then they made the same "mistake" a few blocks away.

When you can kill an innocent person and just say "oops", why would the police not have a "shoot first, ask questions later" policy? Police officer safety first, after all. Then you get "justice" via a civil lawsuit against the city, where the taxpayers pay the price.

#35 | Posted by babyhuey at 2013-02-20 05:20 PM | Reply | Flag: