(Source)   Being Black and disabled is not a crime. We need to stop treating it like one. Thanks to Evita Nwosu-Sylvester for sources and further reading, and to Amanda Cirillo for review.  Disability remains the “missing word in media coverage of police violence.” Far from anecdotal episodes, the connection between disability and policing harm is undeniable.  More than one half of Black Americans with disabilities will be arrested by the time they reach their late twenties. According to a 2016 report by the Ruderman Family Foundation, up to half of all people killed by police have a disability. If you have an undiagnosed mental illness, you are 16 times more likely to be killed in a police encounter. If you are a juvenile or young adult with a disability, you are 13% more likely to be arrested than those without. Other data indicate that approximately a quarter of those killed by police are in a mental health crisis or were known by police to have a mental illness, in spite of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requiring reasonable modifications to policing where a disability is recognized. This is not just tragic; it is systemic. As reforms addressing police [read more]