Newfoundland's police chief issued an apology to an autistic boy and his mother Thursday after the young man was mistakenly arrested and jailed overnight on the suspicion of being intoxicated.
Dane Spurrell, 18, was taken into police custody on Saturday night when officers failed to recognize the signs of his disorder. He wasn't released until Sunday morning.
Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Chief Joe Browne said he met with the teen and his mother, Diane Spurrell, to apologize for the "incorrect" arrest.
Browne added that the incident has been a learning experience for police.
Dane was arrested while walking home from a video store at about midnight on Saturday in his hometown of Mount Pearl, N.L.
His mother said police told him to walk on the sidewalk, and when the autistic boy failed to co-operate he was taken into custody on the assumption he was intoxicated.
Diane told CTV's Canada AM her son wasn't given a breathalyzer test and wasn't allowed to make a phone call when he was first arrested, or when officers brought him to the police station.
"They actively denied him," she said.
"He was asking from the time he was in the police cruiser throughout the night at the lockup and they kept saying he only had the right to call a lawyer, or the other answer was that he should have called instantly."
She also said police turned off his cellphone, preventing her from reaching her son.
Dane had phoned his mother at about midnight to say he was on his way home from the video store. By 1:30 a.m. he hadn't arrived and she began to worry and went searching for her son.
"I was scared to death. I didn't know where he was," she said.
"He's a very reliable person as that phone call indicates. ...He has a fairly normal life and of all the hundreds of times he has walked home alone there has never been an incident."
At about 5 a.m. she filed a missing persons report and was told Dane had been arrested for public drunkenness -- an allegation she found shocking, since her son doesn't drink.
She informed police that her son is autistic, and he was eventually released.
