The deadly shooting of a 15-year-old boy with autism in California has rekindled conversations and fresh calls to improve law enforcement responses to people experiencing behavioral crises.
Ryan Gainer was shot and killed by San Bernardino County deputies who were called to his Apple Valley home on March 9. Gainer’s family called 911 after the boy became upset over a disagreement with his parents involving his chores, according to the family attorney, Dewitt Lacy.
In the 911 call, a woman told the dispatcher that Gainer broke a window and assaulted his sister and said officers needed to “take him in.”
Ryan Gainer, a 15-year-old boy with autism, was shot and killed by San Bernardino County deputies on March 9, 2024. (Photo: X)
Lacy told CNN that Gainer had calmed down before deputies arrived and that his cousin called authorities to let them know, but deputies had already been dispatched.
The sheriff’s office released bodycam footage showing one deputy approaching the home's open front door before Gainer suddenly appeared and began walking out of the house and toward the deputy while holding a large, bladed gardening tool over his head.
The deputy backed away from Gainer and told him, “Hey, get back. You’re going to get shot!” Investigators revealed that both deputies fired their weapons. Three shots in total were fired. Gainer later died at the hospital.
“Why’d you shoot my baby,” one family member could be heard asking deputies after Gainer was shot. Another person can be heard asking why deputies didn’t use Taser instead.
It’s unclear at this point whether dispatchers or the deputies who responded to the call knew about the boy’s autism diagnosis or his mental state at the time of the call. However, San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said the sheriff’s office had been called to the home several times before this most recent fatal encounter. Law enforcement had even taken Gainer to a behavioral health facility during one visit.
“They had had some background, a relationship, a rapport with the family. Or so the family thought,” Lacy told CNN.
In the days since the shooting, questions have resurfaced about how this encounter turned so deadly so quickly and how law enforcement can de-escalate encounters with people with developmental disabilities or behavioral disorders without using lethal force.
Cases like that of Cameron Linden, a 13-year-old boy on the autism spectrum who was shot by police in Salt Lake City, and that of 52-year-old Patrick Warren Sr., a pastor who was fatally shot as he was experiencing a mental health crisis, have also prompted these same questions.
"Police are often called to address situations involving people who are in the midst of a mental health crisis. We also know from the data that these encounters too often result in that person being killed or seriousl
