‘Taking too long’: What an SFPD policy for Deaf people says about police reform – Mission Local

In the summer of 2016, a 73-year-old Deaf woman suffering from dementia allegedly tried to pull another resident at her skilled nursing facility out of a chair.

After San Francisco police officers arrived at the scene, the officers were told they needed to communicate with the Deaf woman by writing down their orders, but they declined. The woman tried to hit another resident with a pillow, and then she allegedly “lunged” at the officers when they attempted to remove the pillow from her hands. 

Officers then handcuffed the 73-year-old woman, leaving marks or her wrists, and she ended up at San Francisco General Hospital for a multi-hour psychiatric hold. There, doctors concluded, the woman’s behavioral outburst was not due to a psychiatric emergency, but rather “difficulty with communication due to deafness as well as progressing dementia.”

A Department of Police Accountability investigation completed a year later found that instead of soothing the woman, the officers escalated the encounter.

Via: ‘Taking too long’: What an SFPD policy for Deaf people says about police reform – Mission Local