Brian Kelmar
Appearances
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
But once you get in the criminal legal system, it is a nightmare. I tell parents it starts to snowball and can get worse and worse as you go. So first of all, I learn about their case. I listen to them. which is important because they have somebody to talk to. And they can talk to me or one of our other co-founders because we've lived it and we know what they're going through.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
That's very key for a lot of parents is you know what I'm talking about. In fact, a lot of times I'll talk to parents, they'll start telling me, I go, stop right there. I can complete all of your sentences because I know it and I've heard it over thousands of times. It's the same situation. And then what I do is I help them where they are in the process. on getting resources.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
We work with them either from the start of the process when they enter the criminal justice system or as they're going through that process. We try to give them resources. We give them history of what's worked well, what hasn't worked well, and just emotional support as well. We have what's called a wine and wine once a month where you can do a little bit of both, but not too much of either.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
And I actually have a list. Okay, first thing you're going to do is this. Second thing you're going to do is this. Third thing you're going to do is this. Here's what's going to happen. You're going to go through this part. And this is where certain things will happen. And here's where you'll go through this part. I talk them through so that they understand. They have my cell number. They call me.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
Sometimes I say I talk to some of the parents off the ledge. And it's good that you can have somebody that you can reach out and talk to that has been through it because it is such an unknown unknown going forward. And that is even more petrifying than even if you do know.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
Well, I mean, that's another great point is the prosecutor is in for a win. And a lot of people think that criminal justice is fair and just, and it's not. I mean, that's just the reality. I'm not making a statement. It's just an observation of reality. It's all about the win. And it's all about the prosecutor winning at any cost.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
And we've heard stories of where things have been manipulated or things have not been true. A lot of times the prosecutors, I tell people it's like a card game. They have all the cards. and they will keep throwing aces at you, and they'll come up with 52 million charges, and some of those charges may not even be relevant, but you're so scared that you're going to be put away for life.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
you're willing to make a plea bargain and you think this is the best thing that you can do and sometimes it is but a lot of times it's not people don't understand what the consequences are that what happens if you do get a felony on your record so we talk to people and they talk to us and we explain that situation and we try and give them resources to level the playing field.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
So we have lots of resources that specifically explains, I mean, there's a lot of atypical things that happen That we can say, because of this in their autism, you will see this. Because of this in their autism, you will see this. So one of the things is in autistics, not everyone, but one of the common characteristics is they can be easily manipulated.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
We've had a case where a person was arrested for robbery. And he wanted to fit in with his with these people that were somewhat being nice. And they said, look, just stay right here with the car. We're going to be back in 15 minutes. Just stay here. And then we need you to give us a ride because we don't have our car.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
And the person doesn't and doesn't realize he's driving the getaway car for a bank robbery. Right. And he gets thrown in with the rest of them. He was just trying to fit in. And that's one situation. And we've had some even more extreme where we've had some cases. We just had a psychologist speak to us about where these terrorist groups will recruit people with autism on the Internet.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
They're not doing a face to face. They're talking through, you know, chat rooms or whatever. And these people are being nice to them. They may even give them a T-shirt and a hat so they feel like they belong. And they're building them up and saying, oh, you're doing such great work for us and we're you know, you need to go do this.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
So that you can share with other families what you're going through and they share experiences and learn from each other and support each other. We also work to change and that is the big part of our organization is trying to create change. What type of changes are you working towards? Change the laws, change perceptions, change the education.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
And they go, okay, because if you don't, you're really going to hurt my feelings. And, you know, you're supporting all these people by doing it. And they're easily manipulated into doing that. Once they realize like, oh no, this is really bad. This is what's going on. They went, oh my, I didn't understand that. I thought they were just being nice to me.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
Even for people who can't afford it. When I say can't afford it, most of us like mortgaging our house, getting out a second mortgage in our house or selling our cars or giving up all of our savings. You have to get psychological evaluations. And what we were able to do is we're able to give the research that has been done and we educate them.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
So we have research and we have papers from various organizations that says, give this to the prosecutor. reach out to, and we have a couple lawyers that will help public defenders understand that. And one of the things we have with that is a lot of times public defenders don't have time to look at that.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
And I tell parents the most important thing, even if you got the most expensive, best lawyer in the world, nobody knows your son better than you do. You need to educate yourself. And here's the information that you need to educate yourself with. And I give that to them. I have those resources.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
And I said, you need to be as fluent as this as I am and relate it, those specific parts that apply to your son so that you explain it. We even have them do a chronological list of what has happened in their life. Okay, remember when they were six and they were bullied? Or remember when they were 18 and somebody said, hey, give me some cash and you'll be my friend?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
All those nuances, write those down to show people this didn't happen yesterday. This has been going on from childhood. When you look at my son's case, and even was brought up in the case, is the doctor said, oh, no, this happened. You could see this the month prior to my wife giving pregnancy. There was shown that there was something wrong that happened during the pregnancy.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
And nobody knows whether it's a pregnancy or whether it's hereditary. There's still a lot of research going on. But no, but all of these things and you show here's a pattern of what has been going on throughout their life. And we've tried to get resources. And this is similar to that pattern so that you can show this is part of their developmental disabilities.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
This is part of their brain that developed differently than a neurotypical and does not understand that.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
So people understand autism and developmental disabilities and how these change. Family members get caught up in these situations because of their autism, not because they're criminal deviants. In fact, it's called counterfeit deviance. It appears to be deviant behavior, but it's not. It's a situation that they did not understand.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
First of all, I want to say we're out there to help you. We are just a bunch of parents that have been through this, and we do not want this to happen to others. So reach out to us at Decriminalized Developmental Disabilities. We'll look that up just like that on Google, or you can just look up D-T-H-R-E-E.org. That's number one.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
If you get in those situations, you need to get in front of it as soon as you think it may even happen. The other thing is you need to educate your children about these situations. If they get themselves in situations, do not ever talk to law enforcement without a lawyer. That gets you in trouble. And number three is that you can change our systems. It takes one person.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
And I tell families, everybody goes, somebody has to do something about this. Somebody has. That somebody is you. And you, one person, yes, you can make a change. And we will help you with that if you're interested in doing that. But it starts with the families.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
And it starts with us making those changes for people to understand there are these people with developmental disabilities that are different from you and I and helping them understand that society around them is so critical so they too can thrive and not end up in the criminal justice system and their lives destroyed forever.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
And once they do understand that, they go, oh, my gosh, I didn't know I was doing this. That was wrong. There's a lot of psychological and medical history and research to back a lot of this that we're talking about. How long have you been doing this? We started the organization back in 2016. We were originally called Legal Reform for Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
And we decided to rename it because what it really is, is we're trying to decriminalize developmental disabilities. And you see these stories all the time, you know, very tragic situations where people are shy. by law enforcement or kids taken advantage of or kids getting kicked out of school. And it has to do with sensory overload and how they process things. And then it gets them in trouble.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
About 13, 14 years ago, my own son was a teenager. And he got caught up in a criminal justice process. It was devastating. And it has been devastating to not only to him, to us, to our entire family.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
And one of the things that just shocked me and really got me just saying, how can this happen, is during the sentencing, the judge said clearly this person has a developmental disability and didn't understand the situation. But unfortunately, the Commonwealth of Virginia does not recognize developmental disabilities. That just stuck with me for years. It's like they recognize mental illness.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
They recognize alcoholism. They recognize drug abuse. They recognize PTSD. But how can you not recognize in the criminal justice system something that you're born with? A developmental disability, the part of their brain works differently from a neurotypical brain. And how can that not be taken into account? So I started telling my story about my son.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
And the way we originally started was we were asked to speak at a webinar. with the arc of the U.S. on criminal justice, typically on their webinars. And this was back about 14 years ago. Webinars and Zooms weren't that big. And they had about 100, 150 people across the country sign up typically for a webinar. They brought up our situation and our topic of autism in the criminal justice system.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
And over a thousand people signed up. It went over the capacity of what the webinar could handle. And there were even more waiting to get in. So we spoke with the ARC afterwards and we said, so myself and another lady, Carol Neskis, and I, we said, well, we're not the only ones in the world that are facing this. We thought it was us. We thought it was an isolated situation.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
And so why don't we form a subgroup of the ARC of the U.S. ? And we did. Another person joined us, Jude Harrison. And just by word of mouth, people go, oh, yeah, let me tell you. And everyone had a story. Oh, my gosh, this is a lot bigger than we ever could have imagined. So we turned it into a nonprofit.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
From then on, I usually get two to three people from all over the country that call me about their son or their daughter or their family member. It's even probably bigger than that. A lot of parents don't want to talk about it because they are embarrassed or shamed.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
I talk to parents and they don't even tell their own family members that their son or daughter is caught up in the criminal justice system like this. Unfortunately, it's getting more and more common.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
Well, that's really how I look at it, and that's exactly how we look at it, is the things that we're changing as we say we're chipping away at the mountain. So one of the things that I said, what's our first line of defense? Well, we have to educate people with developmental disabilities about situations or what's correct behavior and what is incorrect.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
And once they learn, since they're very rule-bound because it helps them understand the world around them, because the world is overwhelming and confusing sometimes. Once they learn the rules, they stick to the rules because they can revert back to that and go, okay, I'm supposed to do one, I'm supposed to do two, I'm supposed to do three.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
But they will never, it tears them apart to deviate from that. So one of the things we said, well, we have to educate them. So I had talked to a lot of people. I met with the local ARC, and they introduced me to my state legislator. And she was... a very, or she still is, a very sharp lady. She was a doctor. She understood it.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
So what we did is we introduced legislation that year that said, if you have an IEP for a person with developmental disabilities, you must include as part of that education, starting in kindergarten,
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
And every single grade all the way through 12th grade, appropriate behavior education, whether that's sexual health or whether that's understanding the things that they go through as they develop, you know, as a teenager. What are appropriate behaviors? For example, we've had autism kids. They watch football. What is the football players after they do a good job?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
They pat the guy on the back, on the backside, you know, or on the back. So they think, well, if I do that, I'm telling this person great. Well, you do that to a woman, right? That's an assault or even to a person, another person assault. But they see this and this is a very popular sport and they're watching this and they go, oh, look, that's how he's congratulating. So I should do the same thing.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
And they mimic that situation. So something as benign as that to them not learning about sexual behavior. And where does anybody find any information? You Google it. And that can take you down a rabbit hole, down to some bad places. And they don't understand that because no one has ever explained it.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
Most of us learn about these appropriate behaviors from our friends and in the locker room as we were growing up in junior high and high school. The autistic individuals, a lot of them don't have families. I don't have friends like that. They're the odd one. They're the weird one out. So nobody talks to them and nobody takes them on. So that's how we kind of evolved and developed.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
That was the first bill we introduced here in Virginia. And then the next one was, what about if they do get up in the criminal justice system? Is there anything to get them out of it? So one of the things we said, if it gets to the sentencing phase, there should be consideration for diversion. And that one's been a very successful one.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
So if they had pleaded guilty or did a plea bargain, the judge could say, all right, time out. What's going on here? This is a developmental disabilities. Let's get this person education and diversion. And then we'll come back and look at it and see if this is deviant behavior or if they've learned and we can move on. And we've been very successful with that one.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
This was all in the same year. We had one that's Bill that said, well, because we had one of the family members that had somebody who didn't make it through that process and ended up in prison. And we said, the prisons do not screen for developmental disabilities. They screamed for mental health.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
And her son was in jail, and he had autism, and she had a medical record about two inches thick saying, he's autistic. I have all the documentation. They went, no, no, he's psychotic, he's bipolar. And they were giving him all these medicines to treat that. And it was like, no. He's autistic. And they were compounding the situation.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
So we passed a law that said the prison system here in Virginia had to take into account and have a way to screen for developmental disabilities. And they have. Since that time in 2020, we've introduced legislation every single year to chip away to try and get developmental disabilities and autism taken into account in the criminal justice system.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
Well, that's one of the things that we're trying to do with our organization is awareness. We are trying to educate the public like we are here on the podcast. I speak quite a bit on TV and radio and articles, and all of our co-founders do the same. So it's educating people. It's educating law enforcement.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
We just passed a law here in Virginia last year through the Autism Society that says law enforcement must go through autism-specific training. And not only once in the academy. but ongoing autism training because they get into these situations when they're first responders. So it's educating law enforcement, educating police, and then educating the judicial process.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
So educating the judges, the prosecutors, and defense attorneys. So part of one of the laws that we introduced said that if you are a public defender, and you are going to defend somebody with autism, you must have, within the past two years, a minimum of four hours training on autism. Because how can you defend somebody if you don't really understand anything about their medical condition?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
I started it here in Virginia because obviously I live here and I live 20 minutes from our capital. So I was able to go down there and I'm able to go down there regularly and talk to legislators. We have grown, as I mentioned, our families are from every, I have them from all 50 states. And I have some people from Canada and I've even had people from UK. So it's educating our families.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
to be the advocates and to push these issues so we have families that are speaking to their senators and their delegates we have reached out to the u.s congress i've spoken to over 60 house of representatives and senators about the issue As we all know, getting things done in Washington has been very challenging. And I spent a lot of effort on that.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
And I haven't seen a whole lot move in the past, oh, six years since I've been trying that. And we just did another round about six months ago of redoing this again. So what I decided was the best way to get change is locally. I started here with Virginia and I am trying to use Virginia as a model for legislation. And then I reach out to parents and parents say, you know, what can I do?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
What can I do? And I walk them through the process. And I said, call your local representative. I'll help you through the process. I'll tell you what to say. I'll even be on the phone call. A lot of times I'm on Zoom calls. I just was on Zoom.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
a zoom call with the maryland legislator and the autism society of maryland and we were working on legislation similar here so what we want to do is try and roll the legislation that we know that has been working here and roll this out state by state and sort of like you know the medical care that we have now i think it started with massachusetts and it started rolling out state by state and the u.s government said well geez
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
So we've created an organization that's called Decriminalized Developmental Disabilities. We work with families whose children or family members have gotten caught up in the criminal justice system who have either intellectual developmental disabilities or other developmental disabilities such as autism.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
All these states are doing it. Why don't we roll this out nationally? So it's kind of the same theory of what we're trying to do is roll this out state by state and then push at the same time at the national level and say, this is a big deal.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
And we're seeing this as a really growing issue because what has happened in our systems is we have some of the supports in place for autistic children in schools. Some are great, some are not so great, but at least there's some there. When they graduate from high school, they basically, as we always say as parents, they fall off the cliff.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
All of those supports and interactions and things that are trying to help them are no longer there. And this is where a lot of our kids get in trouble. I mean, they're living in the parents' basement or they don't have any friends except people on the computer friends.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
So we're trying to educate families how to get appropriate training and education and have laws that help support if they do get in this trouble.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Brian Kelmar:Breaking Down Barriers: One Father's Fight to Reform Legal Treatment of Autism
I mean, that's a really great point. If you've never been into the criminal justice system, you have no idea what it is. What you see on TV and what is reality, it is, they're not even close. It's not even close. Most of us have never seen it inside of a courtroom other than for like a speeding ticket or a parking ticket, right? And you go before the judge and say, yes, pay your fine, goodbye.