Yanni and Carmina
Content Warning: These stories are about violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation and may include references to suicide or self-harming behaviours. They may contain graphic descriptions and strong language and may be distressing. Some narratives may be about First Nations people who have passed away. If you need support, please see Contact & support.
Yanni is a young autistic man in his early 20s who also lives with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and post-traumatic stress disorder.
‘He had undiagnosed autism until he was about six and probably nine or 10 for the ADHD,’ his mother Carmina told the Royal Commission. ‘He had a rocky childhood with an abusive dad. He had a trauma background … He tends to explode. That’s the way his autism shows up.’
Back then, it was ‘perfectly legal to use restraints’ at school.
‘And that's what they did. If he got to the point he was getting niggly, about to blow, they'd get an adult on every corner and drag him through the school, kicking and screaming, lock him in a courtyard … [Then] they would call the police and have him dragged off by police.’
The mistreatment at school made Yanni ‘hypervigilant about the world’. His behaviours worsened.
‘Dehydration, heat and not eating are his three main triggers.’
A couple of years ago, Yanni was having a meltdown at home and had become violent. Carmina was not at home, but her daughter was.
‘When he escalated, the police were called.’
Scared because of his past negative interactions with police, Yanni barricaded himself in his room. When Carmina arrived, police were shouting at him, ignoring his sensitivity to noise. Yanni wanted police to leave so he could drink his milk.
‘Even after he'd gone in his room and was cowering in his room, begging them to leave, they refused.’
Police told her there were two options. Either to give him ‘a light sedative’ and take him to hospital to be assessed, or charge him for the damage to the walls. Carmina wanted to help de-escalate his behaviour by rehydrating him.
‘But they we're going to take him one way or the other.’
Carmina said police pinned Yanni to the ground and injected him with ketamine. He became increasingly distressed and said he couldn’t breathe. When he asked whether they were giving him a lethal injection, one officer replied, ‘No, that comes later.’
Carmina said this incident ‘pushed him into post-traumatic stress disorder’.
‘If he hears a siren, if he sees a policeman anywhere, you know, sees a cop car, he loses it.’
A similar incident happened recently when Yanni ‘was not mentally well at all’.
‘Police came to the house. When he is in the midst of a trauma reaction, the stuff that comes out of his mouth is disgusting … He hates those words, but he can't stop it … He locked the doors on them, so they decided to bash the door down. They ambushed him. They screamed and yelled, "Get on the ground. Get on the fucking ground" … And they put him in handcuffs.’
Again, police refused to back off when Yanni ‘was in a crisis’. One police officer said he had autism training but he ‘was on a power trip … not listening to what needed to be done’, Carmina said.
Yanni had ‘a great life planned ahead of him’ after studying programming.
‘Only thing he ever wanted to do. Did well at it. Graduated. And that's when all this stuff started happening. And since then he has become an absolute shell of who he was.’
Disclaimer: This is the story of a person who shared their personal experience with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability through a submission or private session. The names in this story are pseudonyms. The person who shared this experience was not a witness and their account is not evidence. They did not take an oath or affirmation before providing the story. Nothing in this story constitutes a finding of the Royal Commission. Any views expressed are those of the person who shared their experience, not of the Royal Commission.