He says he immediately got in his car to search, but only had to drive a few houses before he encountered what he described as a large crime scene. Police tape surrounded his road in Mississauga, with many officers in the area. At the center of it all was his son. shirtless, handcuffed, his face bloody. “I saw his face, it was covered in blood, I tried to see what was going on, but the officers were saying, ‘Don’t touch him, stay away from him,’” Darwich recalled. “I said, ‘That’s my son, he’s autistic, I need to see if he’s OK’.” But it wasn’t good. Peel officers ended up subduing Abdullah with a Taser, leaving him with physical injuries and psychological effects that still weigh on his family. Peel police say they were responding to a call on Nov. 4 about “a suspicious person in a state of undress who attempted to enter a vehicle and home” and are providing support to the family. But Darwich doesn’t think the situation was handled properly, and one expert says the incident shows there’s still work to be done to ensure police interactions with vulnerable people don’t end in violence. Moments before finding his son, Darwich says neighbors had spotted Abdullah near the road sitting on a pile of leaves and playing. He says a neighbor told him he called the police because Abdullah looked young and was shirtless in the cold weather. CBC News spoke to several neighbors who described a similar scene – a young man playing cards followed by a large and aggressive police response. Darwich says after the incident, he found six spots on his son that appeared to be Taser wounds. He says he also had cuts and bruises all over his body, including his face.
“She’s afraid of everything”
Abdullah was later treated at a nearby hospital. “It was very painful, especially for a boy like him; he’s very sensitive,” Darwich said. Beyond any physical injuries, he says he’s seen his son’s personality change over the past few days. He has become fearful of people and spends a lot of time alone in his room, Darwich says. “We’ve spent the last four years now at school trying to help him move on, and after that he became this shocked boy. He’s terrified of everything.” Darwich says his family has worked to help Abdullah move forward for the past four years. But now, after Friday’s incident, he says his son is afraid of people and has regressed. “He’s afraid of everything,” Darwich says. (Submitted by Majd Darwich ) In a statement to CBC News, Peel police said at the time of the incident, “the identity and condition of the individual were unknown to officers. Upon arrival, officers were unable to make contact with the man, who appeared to be in danger and was not responding to the officers.” The statement goes on to say that the person was arrested and taken to a hospital to receive medical attention and support after using a conductive energy weapon, commonly known by the brand name Taser. Peel Police say their Department’s Mobilization Unit met with the family to offer support. While Darwich didn’t see everything that unfolded before his son was handcuffed, he speculates that officers tried to talk to him, but Abdullah was unable to communicate. Darwich says officers later told him Abdullah tried to run away, which is why he was Tasered. Knowing Abdullah could be in danger if he left the house alone, Darwich says he planned ahead with such a situation in mind. In 2020, she added Abdullah to the Peel Police Vulnerable Persons Registry — a service in Mississauga and Brampton that allows caregivers of vulnerable people to submit vital information to a database to be used by police and other emergency services in a crisis situation . “They have his picture, his address, I don’t know what else I could do,” Darwich said.
More police training is needed, says expert
Julius Haag, an assistant professor in the sociology department at the University of Toronto Mississauga, describes the incident as “extremely troubling.” Haag’s research explores the effects of policing and criminalization at the individual and community levels on youth from racialized and marginalized backgrounds. “I think it’s indicative of the problems that people with developmental disabilities have had with the police for quite some time,” he said. He says that while efforts have been made in recent years to expand police training to handle situations like this, it’s clear that officers did not respond effectively to Abdullah’s needs. Haag notes that a large police presence can also be overwhelming for someone with autism. “And using a Taser is just going to make it worse.” Haag says incidents like this can affect people’s perception of the police and believes training needs to be improved. “This training needs to be done using independent people from the disability community,” he said. “This should be a key element of how the police are trained, particularly in the area of use of force.”
Officers visited and apologized, Darwich says
Darwich says uniformed officers not involved in the incident visited his home Tuesday night and told him Abdullah should have been looked up in the system. He says they apologized for the way they handled it. He says he hopes other families never have to go through what his family experienced. He plans to file a complaint with Ontario’s Office of the Independent Police Review Director. “This has been a nightmare. A nightmare for him, for me and for his mother,” she said. Looking back on immigrating to Canada from Syria five years ago, he says he never expected something like this could happen because he had so much respect for the Canadian police. “I never imagined that they would be a source of terror or a threat to my son,” she said. “I thought if he was outside and an officer was there, that would mean he was safe. Now I can’t feel safe that he even left that house.”
