Stafford County woman confronts issues of race, autism after son's arrest: ...Alexander acknowledges that no one can know exactly what happened between her son and the officer. But at the core of her fight, and the reason strangers are listening, are two issues she said authorities should consider: Her son has Asperger's, which makes it difficult for him to read social situations, and the incident started because of someone's assumptions upon seeing a black man sitting outside a library. In a news release after the incident, authorities said no weapon was found, and further investigation revealed that the original caller had never seen a gun.
'If you see a black man sitting outside a library and then you initially assume that he has a gun, that's a problem,' Bell said. If Latson had been white, he said, 'there would not have been a call.'
On Alexander's Web site -- http://avoiceforneli.com -- strangers have left comments arguing, for example, that Latson is 'a victim of SWB, sitting while black.'
