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Kids With Special Needs and Disabilities
Young adult with special needs flashed his penis to my 4 YO daughter
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Anonymous
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Long story short: Almost one year ago our neighbor, who is in his early to mid 20s and is mentally handicapped, stopped to say hello to me and my 4 YO daughter, and said something along the lines of "do you want to see my penis?" or perhaps "don't want you to see my penis" while he pulled out his penis for us both to see.
I am very sensitive to what happens when you call the police on a person with special needs, so my response (and my husband's) was to contact the young man's parents, through a friendly neighbor, and sit down and talk to them about what happened and what they can do to protect other children, as well as their son, from future incidents of that sort. At first the parents were responsive, seemed great, etc. They were horrified, said maybe it had to do with his medication, or his frequent need to urinate, or something. My big concern is that this young adult spends much of the day walking the neighborhood alone, and that it seems as if he should be supervised. I spoke to a social worker and my pediatrician, who both independently said, yes, supervision is quite common, and if an adult male does that, supervision is necessary. We were told that this young man would not walk by our house, and that they would talk to his case worker about what was going on, and the parents gave us their number and said call any time, we'll be in touch, etc. Then, they stopped returning our calls. We tried, and tried, and tried. The man continued to walk by our house alone, and it did not make me feel particularly safe. Certainly I did not want my kids playing outside when a potential flasher could be walking by at any minute. The man's parents got a lawyer. I don't know why, except that my DH is a lawyer, but we were trying to handle this in a friendly way that protected their son. The lawyer told us the parents did not believe it ever happened. Then the lawyer stopped returning our calls. Then we contacted the police. We filed a police report. The police tried to contact the family. They have so far avoided the police (the police said they were unable to talk to them, and that unless we press charges and they put out a warrant for his arrest, they can't force the issue). We also contacted adult protective services, who concluded that there is nothing negligent going on (though they said it is EXTREMELY hard to establish anything negligent going on). The police said we can press charges, and they will go arrest him. And it will be messy. And the cop literally told me, "it is not up for us to evaluate whether an offender is mentally sound. We will arrest him just like we would anyone else." This man has special needs. I do not think he should be traumatized like that. But, his parents are acting negligently. They are letting him walk all over our neighborhood, alone, everyday. I see him frequently. It strikes me as dangerous, for the other kids in our neighborhood, but also for him, if his parents "don't believe" that he did something that he very clearly did. I'm at a loss. What do I do? |
Anonymous
| Maybe contact Child Protective Services? He's not a child, but in some ways he is and may be under their auspices. |
Anonymous
| Has he flashed you again in the past year? |
Anonymous
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I think you teach your child to protect herself. By 4 my DD certainly knew to say "Don't touch me" or "No, I have to go" or "You can't do that" and to always come tell me.
I think we all know the parents are full of it. They're scared of him getting arrested. Maybe they can't afford for someone to supervise their son all the time. Teach your DD how to handle herself, and to avoid him. |
Anonymous
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No, child protective services can't do anything.
Sounds like you can only press criminal charges, or let it go. The criminal justice system isn't set up to handle people with special needs. |
Anonymous
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If this only happened once I think you need to drop it.
I'm a volunteer with down syndrome adults and their comments are very off color, racist and sexual. |
Anonymous
It sounds OP is worried that he will do it again. OP, there is probably not much you can do other than contacting the police if he does it again. However, you might have better luck working with his parents if you go through a mediator. However, you have to be specific about what you're trying to accomplish. Do you want him enrolled in some kind of behavioral program? |
Anonymous
This is my question too. Has he done it again? And pressing charges will not solve your problem (but I guess you already know that). They'll arrest him, he'll be let out until a trial or the DA decides they don't have a case (which would be the likely situation) and life will go on. the bottom line is you can't really make your neighbors keep this guy inside the house and you can't make them get a full time supervisor. You can only help your daughter protect herself (like the other pp said) and maybe be out there with her for a while until you are more comfortable. Oh, another thing. You don't really know what the parents did. For all you know, they did whatever they needed to to stop his flashing and are comfortable letting him walk around again. For that first year when you called them every time you saw their son, they could have confronted him or addressed it and he might have kept saying he didn't do it (meaning after the first time) and so now that parents think you're just a freak about it. |
Anonymous
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He probably would have been arrested if he did it again. OP, a sexual offender dot at his address the issue b/c although what he did was wrong we don't really have a justice system that's equipped to deal with this.
You might find information on this post helpful: http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/660659.page#11342491 |
Anonymous
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OP here. He has not done it again, although he did come into our driveway yelling angrily at me, and I ran into my house. This was several months ago. Then our neighbor said he also came onto their property and started harassing their nanny. I assume he's upset with us about the situation. We have otherwise avoided him like the plague, so there would be no other opportunity for it to happen.
He has tourettes as well, by the way, so I can hear when he's out for a walk or when he's approaching our house, making it at least easier to run inside if he's approaching. But it also means it's harder for me to forget about it, because I hear him several times a day, every day. I guess I don't know what I want, except perhaps for this young man to be supervised and occupied during the day, and for his parents to have taken our concerns seriously (and to have believed us. And to have returned our calls, so that we could have remained in communication about the issue). Also, I feel like I have whiplash when I try talking about this issue because if I bring it up with people who are not sensitive to those with special needs, they are horrified that I wouldn't have him arrested, and for those who are more sensitive, I hear I should let it go "unless it happens again" which seems like a weird standard because I'm not letting my kids near him again. I don't care about being flashed but I don't want my 4 YO daughter (or 1 YO daughter) to be flashed by an adult man. His special needs wouldn't make it any less traumatic for my daughters. |
Anonymous
| I'd want to move |
Anonymous
| He doesn't have the mental capacity to understand. You guys are going to get him institutionalized when he sounds harmless. |
Anonymous
| Should just move and let this poor man alone. |
Anonymous
I mean, HE doesn't understand, but he has the ability to scar my children. And that's what makes this so problematic. |
Anonymous
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The OP should move and leave the "poor man" alone so he can continue to do it to the neighbors and whoever moves in next?
No. The parents should take responsibility for supervising their dependent, sexually-inappropriate child. |