Imagine
You’re driving to your laundromat, and as you pull into the parking lot, you’re blinded by police lights. Unsure if they are for you, you get out of your car and approach. As you get out of your vehicle, the police run up to you. You don’t know what they are saying. You can’t hear them, and you can’t read their lips. Within 7 seconds, they tackle you to the ground. You try and yell “I’m Deaf” and “No Ears” to communicate your disability. But then more yelling, and suddenly, you’re being tasered. And tased again.
You’re handcuffed, and your tools for communicating with the world are trapped.
You are arrested without a clue as to why. You are charged with second-degree assault.
You sit in jail for four months and rare outinely denied an interpreter until all charges are dropped.
This is what happened to Brady Mistic in Idaho Springs, Colorado September 17, 2019.
OR:
Let’s say you’re already in prison.
You wake up and see that everyone is getting in a line. You don’t know why or where you are going, but you get in line. If you had missed it you would have missed you’re meal.
A week later, you wake up to smoke in the air. You do not see anyone in the pison. You were left behind.
An alarm blares, but there are no visual cues; the only thing indicating that you are deaf and need assistance in case of a fire is a tiny red dot by your name in a binder with hundreds of prisoners’ names.
You are found by a firefighter doing a sweep of the building, and when you frighteningly walk out of the prison unsure if it was a drill or a genuine emergency, your Correctional Officers (COs) laugh at you.
This is what happened to Louis Markham, a prisoner in Massachusetts who was left a total of five times during emergency evacuations and drills.