ADAPT (824)

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ADAPT (824)

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Nashville Banner
Tuesday, September 21, 1993
POLICE BEAT Glenn Henderson

[Headline] A public relations nightmare
Imagine four burly police officers on the ground subduing a frail young man whose legs don't work — a disabled man who has fallen from his wheelchair and is struggling with police.

Imagine that on television and in color photos on the front page of the Nashville Banner.

It's Don Aaron's worst nightmare.

Aaron, public relations representative for the Metro Police Department, knows that scenario will look "real bad." He also expects it to happen.

The American Health Care Association, which represents' nursing homes, plans a convention at the Opryland Hotel later this month. And where that group goes, so goes ADAPT.

ADAPT — Americans Disabled for Attendant Programs Today is a group of wheelchair radicals who protest, block doors, chant, yell and generally try to disrupt the AHCA conventions.

The two groups are at loggerheads because ADAPT wants federal money taken from nursing homes and placed into home attendant programs.

Aaron worries so much about the possibilities of the police appearing "brutal" in dealing with the protesters that he took the extraordinary step of asking newspaper editors and television news directors to a meeting sort of before-the-fact damage control.

Police know four officers can subdue a suspect without harm much easier than one officer can.

The public, however, also knows four officers can manhandle a suspect a whole lot better than one can.

Aaron wants the media to write and broadcast stories that explain the "subduing" angle. ADAPT, he says, would be gleeful were the media to play up visions of manhandling.

At a training session last week where police were taught safe ways to subdue a person in a wheelchair the media were encouraged to attend one officer expressed the sentiments of most of his co-workers.

"If they're breaking the law, we're going to arrest them. It won't matter that we're doing what we're supposed to do and that we're doing our best to do no harm.

"When they show four cops on the ground 'subduing' a disorderly man with no legs, we're not going to look too good."

[Local & State]