ANDREW YOUNG, 40, was said to have the social skills of a 14-year-old. He had been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. On November 6, Young was walking down a busy street in Bournemouth, England when he saw a man, David Ibitoye, with his bicycle on the sidewalk, according to The Daily Mail. He told the man that it was dangerous to ride a bike on the sidewalk, which was filled with people. Little did he know that one should never, ever challenge a black man. An argument ensued. The cyclist’s friend, Lewis Gill, appeared and punched Young in the head. Young fell and his head slammed onto the concrete. Gill walked away and left him on the ground. Young died the next day.

On Monday, Gill pleaded guilty to a charge of manslaughter and was sentenced to four years in jail. Judge Keith Cutler said that a murder charge was not appropriate because Gill did not intend to cause “grievous bodily harm.” The judge also said there was an element of “provocation” in the attack. Gill contended Young had made a racist remark, according to The Telegraph. From The Daily Mail:

Taxi driver Simon Scott said of him: ‘Andrew was always friendly and polite and often struck up conversations with strangers. He was gentle and wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

— Comments —

Frank writes:

A four year sentence which means two in reality. Life is very cheap on the streets of U.K. 2.0. I suspect that in the view of the judge the allegation that this poor chap made an undefined racist remark meant that being killed was partially justified. Derbyshire’s law should have told him not to accost certain people cycling on the sidewalk as the consequences are likely to be rage, violence and extreme injury or death.

Karen I. writes:

The story about the man with Aspergers was heartbreaking, but I don’t understand how a grown man who was clearly disabled was walking the streets alone and vulnerable to such a crime. He was a child in a man’s body, and he needed as much supervision as any child, probably more.

In my state, there are no more institutions for the majority of severely mentally ill or severely disabled people. They are out and about in a wide variety of circumstances in the community. Some have so much support that their care is a job for three people, one for each eight hour shift. In theory, they are living independently, but in reality, their maintenance is costing society a  tremendous amount of money, and they are not independent at all. They are isolated from their neighbors and mostly interact with paid help. Many women are employed by various agencies to take care of such individuals. It is a very good paying job, but the workers generally do not speak well of their “clients”. The disabled in these circumstances are money makers for everyone from social workers who counsel them on things like social skills, to direct care workers who assist with “activities of daily living” like grocery shopping. Some disabled individuals working menial, minimum wage jobs even have job coaches who are paid very well to shadow them on the job. They spend their days with people who would have nothing to do with them if they weren’t being paid for it.

Other severely mentally ill or disabled people are not as lucky. They may be in family care, partial employment or other situations where they are dependent on government aid but do not have as much day to day help. I know a man with Aspergers. We were neighbors before his mother died, and he still lives nearby. His mother did everything she could for him and he lived with her until she died. Upon her death, he was left alone in the world except for minimal help from a well meaning social worker he sees on occasion. He is not well equipped for the challenge. I often see him walking the streets of my town, oddly dressed, poorly groomed and talking to himself. He suffers from severe anxiety, and has obvious, severe deficits in his social skills. He is also very intelligent, which is why he is not receiving more help. He would never hurt anyone, but he is a big man, and between the way he walks around talking to himself, and his lack of social skills, I can understand where he might appear intimidating. In his current situation, he is lonely, almost friendless, and intimidating to people who don’t know him well enough to understand he is harmless, which is nearly everyone he comes in contact with. I worry he will be seriously hurt or worse in a crime like the one you wrote about.

I do not think institutions are the answer to all the mentally ill and severely disabled individuals in our society, but there are a significant number who would be safer, less lonely and better cared in those circumstances than they are now. There are people who cannot function well enough to care for themselves, and society does them a disservice when they are put them in situations they cannot handle in the name of  “independence”.

Buck writes:

Other aspects depicted in the video make the killing blow seem (it is not) almost incidental to what else I see. The young white girl walking with the black cyclist and the black killer doesn’t flinch or show any reaction at all, as if she’s glancing at a stranger falling asleep on the subway. She’s fixing her hair as the fatal blow erupts from her companion, and continues with her hair as if nothing happened. Then the white guy ( he appears) in the second view watches the killing blow and he just as casually turns away as if a piece of paper blowing in the wind had caught his eye. It was nothing. It’s as if they are all empty of emotion and have no soul. Is this kind of dissociation behavior becoming the norm?

Judge Keith Cutler is the crime boss in this story. Sick.

Karl D. writes:

Karen I. said:

“Some disabled individuals working menial, minimum wage jobs even have job coaches who are paid very well to shadow them on the job. They spend their days with people who would have nothing to do with them if they weren’t being paid for it.”

Funny Karen should mention this. Just today I went to my local supermarket that hires the mentally disabled as baggers, people who collect the shopping carts, and even some who are cashiers. While I was waiting on line, one of these mentally disabled employees was ahead of me waiting to pay for a cup of coffee. Because he had no self-awareness of social cues or even how a business is run he just kept on chatting to the female cashier (who was normal) about inane nonsense. Meanwhile the line was piling up and I could tell that the cashier wanted to end the conversation for both her own sake and for the customers now getting rather impatient. Finally some other female employee came up and managed to walk him away. The cashier then turned to me and said, “He’s really sweet, but once he gets going there’s no stopping him.”

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