Talking about autism and how ableism kills, Jeremy Mardis is far from the only autistic person killed by the police. People NEED to speak up for us, because no one cares when we're killed.

A lot of autistic people panic when there's tons of stimulus, and they cannot follow instructions properly. Loud sirens, shouting, lots of people, etc. And because of stereotypes spread by the media and Autism Speaks, they think we're going to enter "meltdown" and hurt them.

Back in 2012, a 15 year old Black autistic boy, Stephon Watts, was shot TWICE and killed for holding a butter knife. The police were familiar with this kid, because his parents called police for assistance when he roamed. They knew he couldn't hurt them, they killed him anyways.

The officers were let off with no charges because they "felt they were in danger". From a fucking butter knife. This is far from their past abuse with this case. They also tasered him in previous incidents. They got away with abusing someone, and then later killing him.

Autistic people's life expectancy is 36-54. You know why autistic people die young? B/c autistic people are more likely to be abused & murdered by their relatives FOR their autism. More than 550 autistic people have been murdered by family in the past five years in the US.

There's also such harmful stigma against us, that the stress has been proven to give us deadly sleep deprivation & in some cases seizures. We're literally being killed by ableism and stereotypes, and no one fucking cares. Start speaking the fuck up, we need help.