{"id":42519,"date":"2021-03-04T08:05:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-04T13:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/?p=42519"},"modified":"2021-03-04T08:05:00","modified_gmt":"2021-03-04T13:05:00","slug":"courts-decision-leaves-autism-community-relieved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/2021\/03\/04\/courts-decision-leaves-autism-community-relieved\/","title":{"rendered":"Court’s Decision Leaves Autism Community Relieved"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Ontario Autism Coalition is relieved that Alek Minassian has been found guilty for his crimes, and hopes that families impacted by the 2018 van attack will find at least a small sense of comfort from the verdict. We hope that this decision can now lift the dark cloud that has hung over this trial, with a firm rejection of the use of autism as a defence in this case.<\/p>\n

Violent traits have no connection to autism; in fact, people on the autism spectrum are far more likely to be victims as opposed to perpetrators of violence. The court\u2019s decision makes it clear this was never a case of autism causing mass murder, but rather a case where someone who committed mass murder happened to have autism. An autism diagnosis does not predispose one to commit acts of violence.<\/p>\n

Individuals with autism are our neighbours, coworkers, and friends. Today\u2019s verdict offers hope that our community can move forward despite the arguments of one defense attorney that autism is a valid defense for one of the most violent, abhorrent acts carried out against so many innocent people.<\/p>\n

Angela Brandt, President of the Ontario Autism Coalition (OAC) mentions \u201cthere is nothing inherently violent about autism. Mentally healthy people, autistic or not, do not commit acts of violence. I hope Alek Minassian gets the help he requires\u201d.<\/p>\n

Nothing about the actions of Minassian are representative of those with autism and the verdict today emphasizes the distance between Minassian\u2019s heinous acts and the autism community as a whole. Alek Minassian was an individual with autism who committed a crime. Other individuals with autism should not be measured by Minassian\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Ontario Autism Coalition is relieved that Alek Minassian has been found guilty for his crimes, and hopes that families impacted by the 2018 van attack will find at least …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":42520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-12 10:50:32","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42519"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42521,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42519\/revisions\/42521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}