Family of autistic man sues ex-cop over his death

LOS ANGELES — It started as a routine police encounter after officers spotted a shadowy figure lying under a balcony behind a Hollywood apartment building.

The man, Mohammad Usman Chaudhry, was cordial at first. He handed over his ID and chatted with officers about his shoes, other cops he knew and how he stayed dry when it rained.

Moments later, he was dead.

Officer Joseph Cruz said he shot Chaudhry after he lunged at him with a knife. What Cruz and his partner apparently did not know was that the Pakistani-American man was autistic.

Three years later, as a jury weighs a lawsuit against police by Chaudhry's family, the killing highlights a challenge law enforcement increasingly faces: How to approach people with developmental disorders.

Autism is the world's fastest growing developmental disability, currently affecting about one in 110 children. Nationally, police today are better trained to recognize autism than in the past. Officers frequently make contact with autistic people, often when they are victims of crimes or return them home after they have wandered off.

Still, encounters sometimes turn deadly, leading to an outcry from advocates who say the law enforcement community needs more training.

Most Los Angeles police officers receive a one-hour lesson where they meet an autistic person and are taught about some of the condition's traits. Other agencies across the country are introducing similar classes.

"They need at least an eight-hour course," said Jamie Juarez, the director of Hope Counseling and Family Therapy, an outpatient mental health facility and a nonpublic school for children with autism. "They need a diagnostic course so they can distinguish between is this person on drugs or psychiatric impaired."

After Cruz was largely cleared of wrongdoing in the March 2008 shooting, Chaudhry's family sued him for wrongful death and other violations in the case, which a jury was hearing this week.

The dead man's relatives contend that Cruz, who was fired from the force on an unrelated matter, planted the knife.

"He didn't do it," Chaudhry's mother, Rukhsana Chaudhry, told The Associated Press. "He is simple. If someone talks loudly, he becomes scared and just freezes. He is the kind of person who would always follow whatever police said."