FOXNews.com - Autistic Boy Accused of Terroristic Threats

FOXNews.com - Autistic Boy Accused of Terroristic Threats

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Shane Finn, a 14 year old autistic boy, was suspended from school, arrested and charged with a felony. He was charged with with making terrostic threats. Shane Finn functions on a third grade level and has an IQ of 75. He does not understand what he has done wrong, according to his mother, and he has difficulties expressing himself.

As a mom of an autistic boy, I understand the situation. It's my worse nightmare. That my son would be arrested based on actions that have been misinterpreted by others. It happens all the time and needs to be stopped. New legislation needs to be brought about to protect our children.

Our children are different. They think and react differently. This needs to be taken into account for every incident involving an autistic child. In this case, the child should not have been suspended or arrested. Obviously, something is wrong. The parents and school counselor or Psychologist, should have been brought in to talk with the boy and the teacher.

Two years ago, I was blessed with discovering how to communicate with my son. During the second week of our communicating, he told me he wanted a gun. He was 9 at the time. I asked him why. He said he wanted to kill himself. I was so upset, I just broke down crying.

It took us a week of him asking for a gun to kill himself and me telling him no, before we were able to get to the bottom of it. He didn't want to die. He wanted to go see God and have God make him normal. Then, he wanted to come back to us. I explained that it didn't work that way. That was the end of it. He didn't want a gun or to die anymore.

With an autistic child, linear thinking tends to trip us up. An autistic child can say one thing or draw one thing, and it may have a specific meaning to you. For the autistic child, however, the meaning may be something completely different.

That's why laws need to be in place to protect our children. Behavior plans in school are great, but they don't protect our children from the school calling the police and having our child arrested. My heart goes out to Shane Finn and his family. I cringe to think what kind of affect this is having on him emotionally.

Using a Facility to House Prisoners from Guantanamo Bay is a Mistake

I was watching the news last night when I heard about the high security prison in Illinois that the government wants to upgrade and use to house detainees from the Guantanamo Bay
Prison. If this goes through, the facility will be able to host up to 100 prisoners. The facility is located 150 miles west of Chicago and “Among the detainees at Guantanamo are five with alleged ties to the September 11 conspiracy, including accused mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who will be transferred to New York to go on trial in civilian court.”-CNN

Am I the only one scared for Chicago and Thomson, Illinois (the location of the facility in question)? It may be politically incorrect of me to say this, but I don’t want these prisoners in the United States. I would feel safer if they were kept in Guantanamo Bay. I think closing it down is a big mistake.

In my opinion, the government is placing a big bulls eye on Chicago and Thomson, Illinois. I think that the safest thing to do, if Guantanamo Bay has to be closed, is to secure a location for the prisoners and keep that location secret. I know, you probably are thinking that the public has a right to know. Well, if it is safer to not know, I say keep it a secret.

If the government was considering a location near where I live, and made it known publicly, I would be protesting it at the top of my voice. I would hate it. I would be emailing and calling every politician that I could and getting them to change their minds.

I understand that Thomson city officials and the governor like the fact that this will bring in money to their struggling economy. But, is it worth the risk to the citizens of Illinois? I don’t think so. I think that this is a huge mistake and my prayers are with the people of Illinois, especially those in Thomson and Chicago.