#matthew rushin

[stevishabitat]

Black, autistic and out of prison, Matthew Rushin becomes an advocate

Matthew Rushin is thinking about a 9-year-old boy named Levi who lives in Philadelphia.

Like him, Levi is Black and autistic.

Like him, Levi does well in school but doesn’t always respond the way people expect.

Like him, Levi has a mother who worries constantly about how people who aren’t familiar with the way he thinks and acts will perceive him and treat him.

“I can relate to Levi a lot because I was him when I was his age,” Rushin tells me on a recent evening. “It’s kids like Levi that make me want to be the advocate I am, the activist I am. The worst thing that could possibly happen to someone who is Black and autistic is they get into a situation like mine.”

The 23-year-old, who was diagnosed with Asperger’s and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as a child and later experienced a traumatic brain injury, is now home from prison, living with his parents in Virginia Beach. But that is only because former Virginia governor Ralph Northam (D) granted him a conditional pardon, resulting in his release in March 2021. Before that, Rushin spent more than two years behind bars following a crash that left a man with life-altering injuries. Rushin was taken into custody that night and later sentenced to serve 10 years of a 50-year sentence.

While in prison, Rushin was only partially aware of the calls for his release that were coming from his family as well as autistic and racial justice advocates and strangers across the nation who had heard about his case and didn’t believe the criminal justice system had treated him fairly. Together, through emails, phone calls and social media posts, they begged the governor to “Free Matthew Rushin.”

His mother, Lavern Rushin, became his most vocal supporter. She posted public pleas on an Instagram page she created for him. And in an unseen moment, she sent one of his poems to a prison warden and wrote on it: “You have an innocent young man in your prison. I’m going to bring him home.”

The conditional pardon from Northam allowed Rushin to be released early, but it did not grant him complete freedom. It requires him to remain under the supervision of a parole officer for five years and prohibits him from possessing a firearm or driving.

“I can’t drive for the rest of my life, and I honestly wouldn’t want to,” Rushin says. He describes the crash and his time in prison as changing him. Before the crash, he was a college student who watched shows about the criminal justice system but never imagined himself entangled in it. He trusted law enforcement officials. After the crash, he says, he handed over the password to his phone and answered questions without hesitation, only to later realize authorities had already decided his guilt.

“Being locked up showed me the truth of society,” he says. “It gave me a different perspective, a more broad perspective on how society really is and how the people put in place to protect individuals can ultimately fail in that task.”

Body-camera footage obtained by The Washington Post shows one of the first officers at the scene telling others, “He’s f---ing squirrelly, trying to run over here and fake crying. And then he’s talking about, ‘Oh, I just want to kill myself.’ ”

Authorities argued that Rushin intentionally drove into oncoming traffic in an attempt to end his life. He pleaded guilty to two charges of malicious wounding and, for a parking lot collision that occurred before the crash, a hit-and-run charge. Rushin says he didn’t intend to kill himself or hurt anyone that night. His family says he had a seizure and has since placed him on medication to control them.

His family and a psychologist who viewed the body-cam footage describe the officer’s interpretation of Rushin’s behavior as reflecting a lack of understanding of autism. They say Rushin had been asked if he was trying to kill himself and he was repeating that phrase. The repetition of speech is called echolalia and is a common sign of autism. What was seen as “squirrelly” behavior, they say, was his body processing an overwhelming amount of sensory information.

“The police don’t know what it means to be autistic … They don’t understand the differences between how we process language and what our bodies do under stress without our conscious choice,” said psychologist Erin Findley, who is autistic and has viewed the footage. “This is not me saying autistic people get a free pass. If you’re a bad actor, you’re a bad actor. This is me saying if police misunderstand us before they even get on the scene, it’s just going to go worse from there.”

She said one lesson of Rushin’s case is that autistic people should play a role in the training law enforcement officials receive. She also pointed to the importance of recognizing how a person’s different identities, including race, disability and gender, can lead people to place assumptions on them.

Rushin is not the first Black autistic man in the country, or even Virginia, to end up spending years in prison. In 2010, I wrote about Neli Latson, a teenager who was waiting outside his local library for it to open when someone thought he looked suspicious and called the sheriff’s department. A violent encounter with a responding deputy led Latson to spend years in prison. In June, after 11 years and the intervention of two governors, his time under state supervision finally ended.

“If nothing changes as a result of this particular case, that would be heartbreaking but not a reason to give up,” Findley said of Rushin’s case. “I think this is part of a bigger cultural shift toward understanding and being respectful of different people and challenging our assumptions about what we think about different people.”

The details of Rushin’s case are complicated and painful. More than vehicles were wrecked the night of the crash. Rushin recognizes that. He says he prays every night for the recovery of George Cusick, who was with his wife, Danna Cusick, in the vehicle Rushin hit. In a statement, Danna Cusick described her husband as no longer able to do anything for himself and requiring a feeding tube. “Only someone totally removed from our truth would waste prayers on the impossible,” she wrote. “George will never even closely approach partial recovery. He is destroyed. His family is destroyed. His friends are destroyed.”

If Rushin chose never to talk about that day or his time in prison, that would be understandable. But he is now contributing to important conversations his case started and trying to help people better understand what it means to be autistic and Black. He has developed his own social media following and has spoken publicly when asked.

“I take all 27 months as a lesson,” he says of his time in custody. “I wish all the changes to my life didn’t happen because of me getting locked up. But we’re here now, and doing well and that’s what I care about.”

What he cares about is that there are Black autistic boys who will turn into Black autistic men, and their parents have reason to worry how they will be perceived and treated.

Levi’s mother, Chante Douglas, also sees the similarities between her son and Rushin. She describes what happened to Rushin as one of her worst fears for her son as he gets older.

“As an African American mother who is raising a Black child with a disability that to the world looks invisible, things can go left really quickly,” she said. “If he’s not understanding cues or he doesn’t want to be touched or a noise might trigger him, so many variables can make a situation just as simple as a traffic stop go all the way left and become violent for no reason.”

Douglas has written a series of books that feature her son as the superhero, “Echo Boy.” She said she is grateful for the conversations Rushin’s case has amplified because she doesn’t want to hold her son back.

“I want him to live his truth,” she said. “I want him to not be ashamed of having autism. I don’t want him to mask any of the things that make him unique.”

[nappingpaperclip]

Matthew Rushin, a young black man with Autism and ADHD, was sentenced to 50 years in prison after being in a car accident, after which he was manipulated into pleading guilty for attempted suicide and murder with the promise he could return home to his mother who was battling cancer at the time. 40 years of the 50 were suspended, but he still has to serve 10 years.

There were serious injuries during the accident, but no one died. Matthew has never been in trouble before.

In the words of his mother, “Matthew has been my rock through my battle with cancer and understands what life is all about.Matthew exemplifies what it means to be a productive member our community, he is a loving, caring, compassionate about life and everything that surrounds it, student at ODU, worked at Panera and volunteered throughout our community.”

Here is the full story from his mother

Here is the petition for Governor Ralph Northam to review the case and reduce his sentence.

His case is not getting nearly the amount of attention it deserves. Please sign the petition and reblog this. Here is the official Facebook, and Instagram page is @ justice4matthewrushin

[narrowtriangle33-blog]

Can you please do this and share for Matthew?

[uvmagazine]

A man with autism was granted a conditional pardon by Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam after he was sentenced to a decade in prison for his involvement in a nonfatal car crash.

Read more:

[alsharira]

What’s stopping them from continuing sentencing people to death without enough evidence?

You and your voice.

[rainforestgeek]

“[Matthew Rushin] had been persuaded to sign a plea agreement that was not in his best interest.”

I can only try to imagine what that must have been like. Fellow autistics, we know what it’s like to be under pressure in an unfamiliar, already stressful situation surrounded by strangers. As soon as I read that sentence above, it reminded me of all the things I’ve agreed to that I shouldn’t have because I was just trying to hold myself together.

This is a young man who has grown up under the double threat of bigotry against disabled and black people from authority figures, especially in the justice system. He didn’t get the fair trial nor the humane consideration he deserves. He signed the plea agreement without understanding what it meant for his life - he thought doing so would let him go home. He has had no medical or psychological care since being incarcerated.

Below is the news article I’d quoted above.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-young-black-autistic-man-was-sentenced-to-50-years-for-a-car-crash-tens-of-thousands-of-people-are-now-calling-for-his-freedom/2020/06/24/fabeda1a-b640-11ea-a8da-693df3d7674a_story.html

[daughterofdessalines]

Matthew is autistic with serious health issues... including an untreated cyst in his brain. He doesn’t belong in prison for a non-fatal incident. This is just the mass incarceration system taking advantage of those who are vulnerable in our society because we have a Racist system that will back them up.

[frtyfour]

Things that have been happening in the autistic community recently that everyone, allistics included, should know about: 

Trigger warning murder and transphobia.

January/November 2019: Matthew Rushin’s accident and wrongful imprisonment case Matthew, a 21-year-old Black autistic college student, was in January 2019 involved in a car accident, which was wrongfully claimed a suicide attempt. He is currently in prison and facing a 10-year sentence, essentially for having an autistic meltdown while being Black. In light of the Black Lives Matter movement, his case has gained public traction. More information can be found here, here and here. Sign the petition here.

May 18th: Chad Gordon killed in a case of mistaken identity Chad, a 27 year-old Black autistic man from Hackney, London, was fatally shot at close range when he opened his door on Monday May 18th. Read more about his tragic murder here.

May 21st: Alejandro Ripley’s murder  Alejandro, a 9-year-old autistic, non-speaking boy, was brutally murdered by his own mother in Florida. After having been saved by bystanders the first time his mother pushed him into a canal, he later died in a different canal. According to the mom, “he’s going to be in a better place”. Read more details here. 

May 30th: Iyad Al-Khalak’s murder Iyad/Eyad Al-Khalak, a 32-year-old Palestinian autistic man, was shot and killed by Israeli police in Jerusalem. Apologies have been made by the government, but the police officers involved need to be held accountable. Sign the petition here. I have made a post about other actions you can take to demand justice, which you can find here. 

June 10th: JJ Vallow (and Tylee Ryan)’s confirmed death Two children, Joshua “JJ” Vallow and Tylee Ryan, had been missing since September, 2019. The family has confirmed the remainders that have been found are indeed JJ and Tylee. JJ was an autistic 7-year-old boy, and Tylee was his 17-year-old sister. More details can be found here, and here.

May/June: Huxley Stauffer’s “rehoming” YouTubers Myka and James Stauffer recently declared to “rehome” their adopted, autistic 4-year-old named Huxley from China. According to them, this was due to “extent of his needs”. Huxley is currently the subject of a police investigation, as his whereabouts are unknown. For more details, see here and here.

J.K. Rowling’s infantalisation of trans autistic people As many of you probably know, J.K. Rowling posted a “response” to the criticism she’s been receiving on June 10th. You can read the post here. With the words:  “The UK has experienced a 4400% increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment. Autistic girls are hugely overrepresented in their numbers. [...] ‘I (Lisa Littman) would have been remiss had I not considered social contagion and peer influences as potential factors.’ [...]  where she believes that in the realm of transgender identification ‘youth have created particularly insular echo chambers.’ , Rowling has upset the autistic community. Infantalisation is a senstive issue among autistics, as it is a tactic used to undermine our capabilities. If you want to read what trans autistic people have to say about this, search #WeAreNotConfused on Twitter.

Solomon Smith’s experience with police Solomon “Sunny” Smith, a Black autistic man, was walking home, racially profiled and tased, because he couldn’t respond to demands. In the video here you can hear him repeatedly say: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry”. Black autistics are at an extremely high risk to be in contact with the police, and this is an issue that needs to be addressed.

What these recent events confirm is that autistic lives are at risk at an alarming rate. We are treated inhumanely, even by those who should be our caregivers. We are being murdered for existing. Black autistics in particular fear for their lives. They should not be left out of the conversation. So, spread the word: #BlackAutisticLivesMatter, #BlackDisabledLivesMatter! 

Our community is overwhelmed. We are scared. Autistic people are generally at a high risk of suicide, and being Black and/or trans on top of that, is dangerous in times like these. Please support us by sharing these stories, signing petitions and most importantly: listen. Check in on your autistic friend, ask them how they’re coping with these events - amidst everything that is going on - and listen to what they might need. Be supportive. 

[loveable-sea-lemon]

i compiled resources to take action to help Matthew Rushin! please share

[risingphoenix87]

FREE MATTHEW RUSHIN!

[fiberwoman15]

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A post shared by FREE MATTHEW RUSHIN (@justice4matthewrushin)

[freematthewrushin]

TODAY IS MATTHEW ‘S BIRTHDAY: CALL TO ACTION: ASK THE GOVERNOR & STAFF FOR AN ABSOLUTE PARDON

Matthew is a black, autistic twenty-one year old male who was a model citizen. He beat all kinds of odds against him: black, autistic, ADHD, anxiety, a traumatic brain injury(TBI) in 2017 that left him comatose for several days, and which required rehabilitation in order for him to re-learn life functions, including walking and talking. A pituitary cyst was discovered during evaluation and treatment for the TBI. The single car accident which resulted in the TBI has left him with PTSD. Despite all of these challenges, Matthew graduated with honors from high school, was employed and was an engineering student at ODU. He participated in numerous volunteer activities. He is a gifted pianist, plays the viola beautifully, and he composes music and writes poems.

Matthew was sentenced to 50 years for a non fatal car accident. No drugs or alcohol involved...just words. He repeated words from an angry man which is called Echolalia. Those words were used to turn a car accident into a crime. Autism & prior accident never taken into consideration.

Matthew Rushin's guilt was decided the moment the Virginia Beach Police stepped on to the scene of the January 4, 2019 accident. None of the 17 Virginia Beach officers followed their own standard operating procedures to transport an injured and mentally confused and distressed person for evaluation.

They did not exhibit any understanding of autism in their interpretations of Matthews comments and actions. Instead, they took advantage of his vulnerability as they handcuffed him, questioned him for nearly 4 hours at the scene, lied to him about evidence, isolated him from his family, charged him with 2nd degree murder with a claim that the accident was an intentional attempt to kill himself by deliberately driving head on into another car.

The facts don’t support this, including the totality of the victim and witness statements, Matthew’s behavior and statements, and the forensic evidence.

It took less than 6 hours for Matthew’s freedom, his reputation, his future to be stolen by Virginia Beach Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice System.

Please ask Governor Northam, to refuse to allow the “system” to steal any more days from Matthew. Ask Governor Northam to grant Matthew an Absolute Pardon and do whatever it takes to free him today!

Matthew turns 22 on August 4th, 2020.

*******************************************************************************************

These are critical points:

1. Matthew was not taken for medical (and mental health evaluation) the evening of the crash. He has lost consciousness, had a prior serious brain injury, was banged up around the face and bleeding, was not making sense - yet, instead of taking him for evaluation and care, the police handcuffed and interrogated him for nearly 4 hours at the scene, then more at the police station (with lies and manipulation). He still has not had the physical evaluation he should have had that day - despite the fact that he has a cyst on his pituitary gland that was due evaluation the month he was jailed (19 months ago), AND he is having severe headaches, dizziness and temporary blindness.

2. Virginia Beach Police Department has a CIT (Crisis Intervention Team) program that is supposed to divert people with mental illness or in mental health crises to treatment rather than the criminal system. Not only did they not activate that team despite his history of PTSD, anxiety and his symptoms at the scene AND the fact that they were going to charge him with attempted 2nd degree murder on the basis of a suicide attempt (unfounded!), the woman how did much of the interrogation - which included lies about the evidence they had, and pretending that she was his friend - is a trainer for their CIT program. Further, suicidology must be determined by psychologist or psychiatrist. It was not - and wouldn't have been. They were able to maintain that charge, because after 7 months of jail, when Matthew was told that if he signed the plea deal, he could go home - that was his understanding - he signed it. From that point forward, the prosecutor, judge and press referred to the "fact" that he admitted he deliberately ran into the other car because he was trying to kill himself.

Officer Hosang only has 12 hours of Autism training, it takes psychologists years undergraduate education, graduate education and a whole lot of certification to even be able to practice. Officer Hosang told Matthew as heard in the interrogation, she hopes to arrest and charge him. What CIT does that? Is that descalating the issue? Um.. no way!

3. Mental health services have not been provided. Medication for anxiety was provided after months, but not counseling/treatment. Matthew has not had the required neurology follow up for his conditions identified prior to his incarceration.

4. Matthew and his family have not been able to talk face to face for 19 months, let alone hug. This 20 year old autistic man who had just been in a very serious car accident and who was clearly physically impacted was not allowed the comfort of his family. His dad was at the scene for hours waiting to be allowed to see his son. He wasn't even told when they took Matthew away from the scene. Mr. Rushin found out 45 minutes later.

5. Matthew was ripped from his life on the basis of an unsubstantiated claim, denied his rights, taken advantage of and taken straight to prison for a charge that never should have been made. Yet when there is overwhelming evidence of all of the wrongdoing, he remains in prison. That is totally unbalanced. He was judged guilty on sight. But it is taking months to free him. This is so wrong.

________________________________________________________________________________

(1) Mark R. Herring: Attorney General

EMAIL: service@oag.state.va.us

CALL: (804)786-2071

(2) Kelly Thomasson: Secretary of the Commonwealth

EMAIL: Kelly.thomasson@governor.virginia.gov

CALL: (804) 786-2441

Fax: 804-786-7441

(3) Brian Moran: Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Secretary

CALL: Office: 804-786-5351

EMAIL: Brian.Moran@governor.virginia.gov

(4) Tonya D. Chapman: Chair of the Virginia Parole Board

EMAIL: tonya.chapman@vpb.virginia.gov

CALL: 804-674-3081

(5) Virginia Governor Ralph Northam

CALL: 1 (804) 786-2211

EMAIL: Ralph.Northam@governor.virginia.gov

(6) pardons@governor.virginia.gov

(1) PETITION LINK: (DO NOT DONATE TO THE PETITION, ONLY SHARE)

https://www.change.org/p/ralph-s-northam-matthew-rushin-autistic-college-student-odu?recruiter=295142305&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_abi&utm_term=psf_combo_share_abi&recruited_&fbclid=IwAR0k8rkuCWrURYz3pq7v8mXkd3rGwkfsidB8alqhxLiUn4mF-y7zXlUq0y8

(2) GOFUNDME FOR LEGAL AND EXPERT FEES (ZERO THE TIP FEE: DO NOT ADD A TIP): we still need financial assistance! We appreciate everyone ❤️

https://www.gofundme.com/f/SAVING-MATTHEW-RUSHIN

(3 PAYPAL:

https://www.paypal.me/Dance4Matthew