Published on 12, July, 2020
Trigger warning: knife crime and murder
I had not been following too closely the news reports about the tragic murder of Brianna Ghey. However on the news last night it stated that both of the accused are autistic and that has shocked me. This online news report states the the boy "has been diagnosed with selective mutism and autism spectrum disorder" and the girl "has traits of autism and adhd". They were described as 'high functioning' in court
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-67727331
I find it impossible to comprehend how any autistic person could be capable of such a premeditated heinous crime and then to lie about it afterwards.
The stigma against autistic people persists and news reports like this are not going to help with the negative perceptions some people continue to have. Sadly there are some people who believe that autistic people are in some way dangerous and should be locked away in institutions. Cases like this might damage public support for the NAS campaigns to release autistic people who are wrongly detained
I don't think it's out of the ordinary for those who report on criminals to also note that they're autistic or suffer from a disorder or whatever. Whether that's actually the right thing to do is another matter, but I'd agree that it's not necessary in this case.
Having said that, most reasonable people won't use this isolated incident to form some kind of idea of what autistic people are like. I dare say most people don't even care about that particular detail, it's just a horrific crime full stop.
I agree with this. Only the very stupid will see this story and think "I hate everybody with Autism now". A sizeable proportion of the population probably directly know someone with Autism. So those people will realise not everyone with Autism is a murderer.