HOPKINSVILLE, KY (CHRISTIAN COUNTY NOW) – A recent encounter that a local autistic teenager had with law enforcement has left a Hopkinsville parent shaken after her home was surrounded with drawn guns during a traffic stop.
On Sept. 2 around 4:30 p.m. a deputy with the Christian County Sheriff’s Office initiated a traffic stop on a young teenager who was riding a motorized minibike around the neighborhood. As captured by a doorbell camera and recounted later by the minor involved, the deputy followed him to his residence and exited his vehicle to speak with him.
“He followed my son home, he had his lights on, but no sirens to let my son know that he was behind him,” Brittany Rager told Christian County Now. Her son asked the deputy if he could go inside and get his mom, to which he was told no. Her son proceeded to walk inside, and the deputy ran to porch, pulled out his firearm, and repeatedly yelled that he needs to come outside.
“My child came in and he yelled, ‘He’s trying to get me!’…and as soon as I stepped out the door came flying open,” she added. Her ninth-grade son has been diagnosed with autism, and Rager says whenever he is upset and scared, he reacts differently than a neurotypical teenager might.
Rager had just stepped out of the shower when the deputy approached, and she initially did not let him inside. When they talked through the door, she was told that her son had fled a traffic stop. The deputy then ran around the outside of the residence to the backyard, “I guess he thought my son had run out of the back door.”
She said the deputy remained with his gun drawn until back up was called and multiple CCSO and Hopkinsville Police vehicles ended up arriving on the scene with law enforcement surrounding the house.
“He was scared, he was in my bed covered up with the covers crying,” she said. Some of the officers that arrived were people she and her son already knew and trusted. From that point on, the officers calmly addressed her son and were able to get him to relax and reassure him enough into talking about what happened as well as discussing bike safety and what to do when police approach.
“They took the time to listen, communicate with him appropriately, and make both him and me feel safe,” she said about the HPD officers. “They understood that he was scared and overwhelmed, and they handled the situation completely differently. They even apologized to us for what had happened. I truly appreciate those two officers and believe they showed exactly what compassionate and appropriate law enforcement response can look like.”
Filing a complaint, her message to parents
After the frantic encounter was resolved, Rager watched doorbell video footage with the deputy’s response, which ultimately led to her filing a formal complaint with CCSO. She has chosen not to disclose the identity of the deputy, although she shared video with Christian County Now.
“I made my son sell his minibike that same night because I’m thinking he violated a traffic stop, so maybe he didn’t stop at a stop sign or maybe he wasn’t being safe and that’s why he stopped him,” she said. After this experience, Rager wants other parents of kids with autism to prioritize having conversations about law enforcement with them so they can avoid a situation like this.
“If I wouldn’t have went back and watched the video from the start to the end I wouldn’t have filed a complaint,” she said, noting that the specific deputy was very friendly after he found out her son was autistic.
Ultimately, no report was filed by CSSO regarding the traffic stop and there is no record of the encounter. Rager was told a few days later that the sheriff’s office reviewed body cam footage and deduced that the officer responded appropriately.
| DOWNLOAD THE APP: Sign up for our free Christian County Now app