Family of Autistic Man Killed by Irvine Police Question What Went Wrong in Fatal Encounter<\/a>]<\/p>\nAnaheim leaders say the voluntary initiative dubbed the Blue Envelope program could save residents lives as the city\u2019s police department has faced its own questions about excessive force in recent years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a huge deal,\u201d said Councilwoman Kristen Maahs at Tuesday\u2019s city council meeting. \u201cI had mothers with tears in their eyes thanking us and saying they can breathe again. So it\u2019s a big deal, and communication can mean the difference between life and death.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Initiative participants are given a blue envelope to hold their car registration, insurance and other information they can show to police officers at a traffic stop to indicate they may need more time to communicate with the officer or more clear directions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The initiative, police say, is also for drivers with cerebral palsy, epilepsy, difficulties communicating, sensory or cognitive challenges.<\/p>\n
Lt. Rick Boyer, the department\u2019s traffic commander, said the envelopes hold communication assistance cards that can help officers and the drivers better understand each other and that officers have been trained on the envelopes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s so many tools that the city provides for us as law enforcement, and this one is so simple and yet it\u2019s the most valuable thing to law enforcement. What it essentially does is it gives us time, and it gives us information and in law enforcement, those are the two most beneficial things that we can get,\u201d Boyer said at Tuesday\u2019s city council meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He added that it\u2019s another tool that can help deescalate situations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe benefits of this is it\u2019s just going to encourage understanding from both sides,\u201d Boyer said. \u201cIt\u2019s a built-in de-escalation model from the very beginning. Without ever having said a word to each other, you\u2019ve communicated that there\u2019s an issue here, and we\u2019re going to need to take more time while we\u2019re working through something, and so it improves communication.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councilwoman Natalie Rubalcava said she has an autistic brother and would like the program to expand past traffic stops.<\/p>\n
\u201cI kind of see this expanding even further into the households of residents who live in our city and I think that\u2019ll be beneficial not only to them but also to our law enforcement officers who are responding,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think parents would probably feel better about calling law enforcement when they just need help at home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boyer said the envelope will come with a sticker participants can put up near their front doors and when residents sign up for the initiative it will be registered with the department and pop up when there are calls for service.<\/p>\n
His department in recent years has faced scrutiny over police shootings and killings, with residents raising concerns of excessive force.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Residents and family members of Alberto Arzola, a 19-year-old who was not autistic and was killed by an Anaheim officer in December, have been showing up to city council meetings regularly demanding transparency and accountability for the killing of Arzola.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Police officials say a gang suppression unit tried to approach Arzola for suspected vandalism and chased him to his home where a struggle ensued and an officer fired his gun. They also say a loaded firearm was recovered in the grass next to him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Arzola\u2019s family say the officer used excessive force to kill him and his death could have been avoided.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Two years ago, Anaheim officials agreed to pay a nearly $6 million settlement to the four children of Brandon Lopez, an unarmed 34-year-old Santa Ana man who was shot and killed by Anaheim police officers in 2021 following a stolen vehicle pursuit and an hours-long standoff along Santa Ana Boulevard.<\/p>\n
His family said Lopez \u2013 the cousin of Santa Ana Councilman Johnathan Hernandez \u2013 was having a mental health crisis when he was killed.<\/p>\n
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org.<\/p>\n
\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anaheim police \u2013 a department that has often faced questions about their use of force \u2013 are rolling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,1528,2267],"class_list":["post-445655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-anaheim-police-department","tag-voice-of-oc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}