Striving to remove barriers that prevent us from building Vibrant, Diverse, Inclusive, Accessible Communities!
People with Disabilities in Colorado are describing in their own words what was done to them on a Denver train, and their account is the one that deserves to be heard. Abby Dew For You, a Douglas County organization founded by Abby Dew, runs social programs for adults who have intellectual and developmental disabilities, and none of its members drive. The group rides the Regional Transportation District (RTD) line into Denver through the warm months so that members can be out among other people and practice the everyday skills that go with moving through a city on their own. On July 24 seventeen adults with disabilities and four staff members boarded at Lincoln Station by way of the accessibility ramp, expecting a day of candle making. A short distance into the ride a man carrying a box opened it, revealed a gun, and asked the group with a dehumanizing slur whether they wanted to buy it, making these riders the target of open oppression while occupying a place in their own community that belongs to them.
That word was not a random insult. It belongs to a long record of language used against People with Disabilities, and here it arrived attached to a firearm. Dew said the man swore at the group, shouted degrading names, pressed close to the faces of members, and kept returning to guns. The worst of it, she said, was hearing her members called those names while the presence of a weapon left them no safe way to answer. Grace Indiano, who is 24 and has developmental and physical disabilities, said she was shocked and terrified and believed she would not live through that day. She had been excited for the outing until it happened, and afterward she named the stakes herself, saying that what occurred is never acceptable and that she has the same right as anyone to attend theater performances and baseball games.
When the danger peaked the lead staff member pressed the emergency stop, and the man ran from the train. What that button did not do was bring anyone. Dew explained that the control halts the train and nothing more: it notifies no police, no paramedics, and no one else able to reach the scene, and it is not labeled clearly enough for riders to know that. Seventeen adults with disabilities and four staff were left alone with an armed stranger and no way to summon assistance. The agency answered by calling itself committed to a transit environment that is secure and welcoming, and by citing falling security call volumes across its 2,349 square mile service area, roughly one such call per 1,900 boardings, a gap between what an institution claims and what it actually delivers to People with Disabilities. Dew and the parents are asking for stronger onboard surveillance, mandatory fare verification, and an emergency protocol that reaches a responder, and the group has now stopped riding the light rail while it rewrites its own emergency policies.
Laura Indiano, Grace's mother, said the incident points to something larger and that the transit agency must treat rider security as a real priority, because access to the train matters to the community. Dew stated the obligation plainly: a public transit service owes a responsibility to People with Disabilities in the community, and they deserve to reach their community safely. Community Builders should understand that this obligation does not stop at the transit agency. Removing barriers is not a product to be purchased or handed to someone else to deliver; each of us carries it personally and all of us carry it together, through decisions made in consultation with People with Disabilities themselves. That means standing with these riders rather than leaving them to absorb this alone: insisting on transit they can use without fear, refusing to let degrading words pass in our presence, and putting the removal of these barriers ahead of our own convenience. It also means beginning where this account began, with People with Disabilities speaking about their own reality, and then acting on what they say.
Read the Full Article: Disabled Colorado adults say they were harassed and threatened with weapon on RTD light rail.
By: Olivia Young
