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Participants will be given a decal to alert officers, who could then know to utilize specialized training and experience to assist the autistic person.
The City of Kissimmee Police Department announced a new program Tuesday that would notify first responders when a person with Autism is in a vehicle or home by placing a decal that says, “Occupant with Autism.”
Signup for the program is voluntary.
Participants will be given a decal to alert officers, who could then know to utilize specialized training and experience to assist the autistic person.
The decal is available free of charge for residents that live within City limits. Participants will also fill out a form with any information they would like the officer to know about the person with Autism. The form is available on the City’s website www.kissimmee.gov/autismdecal. Officers will also have access to the form and decals if anyone in the Kissimmee community is interested in signing up.
The program has become popular in the past weeks among Central Florida law enforcement agencies.
Last week, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office announced its own OCSO Autism initiative, with stickers that can be placed on a home or vehicle, and Polk County also unveiled a similar program after a recent traffic stop did not go ideally at first. Sheriff Grady Judd said the situation finally situation deescalated once his deputy determined the person had autism. Judd also noted his grandson is on the autism spectrum.
“Most wonderful, kind, gentle, smart, intelligent person that I’ve ever met. But you need to know that things upset him that may not upset the child without autism,” he told Tampa’s WFLA-TV.
Information from the Kissimmee Police Department (KPD) was used in this report.
