Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Dennis Debbaudt : reveals how proper training can prevent tragic misunderstandings between autism and law enforcement.
Sat, 05 Apr 2025
Send us a textDennis Debbaudt shares his 30-year journey addressing autism-related police interactions and developing training programs for law enforcement nationwide. His pioneering work bridges the gap between public safety professionals and the autistic community through educational materials, videos, and hands-on training that helps prevent tragic misunderstandings.• Former detective agency owner whose autistic son's diagnosis in the 1980s revealed a complete lack of resources on autism-police interactions• Created the first-ever training materials addressing autism for law enforcement in the early 1990s• Highlights the staggering increase in autism prevalence from 2-5 in 10,000 people to today's 1 in 36• Emphasizes that autistic behaviors can be misinterpreted as drug intoxication or non-compliance• Teaches officers to recognize "street signs" like autism awareness stickers and specialized terminology• Promotes techniques including increased personal space, extra processing time, and varied communication approaches• Focuses on voluntary disclosure strategies and technology tools that can alert first responders• Trains others to continue his work ensuring that these critical interactions become safer for everyoneIf you know anyone who would like to tell their story, send them to TonyMantor.com contact, and they can provide their information to potentially become a guest on our show. Please tell everyone about Why Not Me? The World, the conversations we're having, and the inspiration our guests give to show that you are not alone in this world.https://tonymantor.comhttps://Facebook.com/tonymantorhttps://instagram.com/tonymantorhttps://twitter.com/tonymantorhttps://youtube.com/tonymantormusicintro/outro music bed written by T. WildWhy Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI)
Chapter 1: Who is Dennis Debbaudt and what is his background?
Dennis has been a pioneer in addressing autism-related police issues since the early 1990s, authoring over 40 books, reports, and training videos on the subject. He has trained with NYPD's emergency services, consulted on the Chicago Police Department's autism training, and appeared in major outlets like the New York Times, the Associated Press, among others.
We are excited to have him share his insights with us. Thanks for coming on.
Well, happy to. And thank you for this wonderful project that you're on here. It will make a difference.
Well, thanks. I appreciate your kind words. Can you give us a little insight on your journey to doing what you're doing today?
No. I owned a detective agency in Detroit, Michigan, starting in 1981. When we moved down here to South Florida, I closed that place. Licensed down and did it down here till 2013. So it was a 37-year career as a big city detective agency owner. And I did focus on people and things that needed to be found.
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Chapter 2: How did Dennis Debbaudt start his journey in autism-related police training?
So that put me in contact with the FBI, state police, and local police all around the country and in other countries too when necessary. It was that background. And then I also had a brief flirtation with freelance reporting. So my work was seen in the Detroit News and monthly Detroit Magazine and then in documentaries too out of the UK and Canada. Their son was born in 1983.
Within a couple of years, we were having that lived experience kind of like what you had a year ago. You didn't know anything about it. And neither did we.
So this ultimately led you to start researching to find more out about it, correct?
Chapter 3: What challenges did Dennis face in finding autism-related resources?
What I did discover as a researcher and an investigator once I had enough lived experience to try to find some solutions was that this population and their interactions with the policing, public safety, and criminal justice system had not been reported on ever. And when you write something or produce something, It's not your judgment, ultimately, whether or not somebody reads it or hears it.
It'll be the consumer. And so when I did write my first report, I got a lot of positive feedback on that in 1993.
So once you started digging, what path did that lead you on to start helping the autistic world?
Basically started with the autism spectrum disorder, the lack of information that I needed in the late 80s, early 90s, and then realizing that there isn't any of this out here. If you're interested, you're going to have to dig in a bit. which I did do. So it's autism-focused.
I've learned that prior to my efforts, there were the crisis intervention team models prior to that, back in the late 60s, and then information and training materials video that date back to the late 50s. Interactions that people with conditions of the brain or neurological disorders, mental illness, if you will, they were having a higher rate of contact
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Chapter 4: How has the prevalence of autism changed over the years?
with added risk for law enforcement, probably since law enforcement's been around.
What kind of understanding did that help you with?
Those contacts were troublesome at that point in time. A new group of people grew in front of our eyes, and that new group was autism. Even when our son was diagnosed, the rate of autism was thought to be 2 to 5 in every 10,000 people. By the time we got his official diagnosis, it had gone down, if you will, to 1 in 1250 people.
The end of the 1990s is now well under 500, and currently today it's 1 in 36. What the contacts of these interactions consisted of, even back in the 90s with my early research part of the internet, those contacts continue to happen. The difference now between now and then is there are thousands more, tens of thousands of more autistic people out here that we've identified.
Now you've written some books and different things for police. What led you to get involved with helping the police and the first responders identify get a better understanding about autism and how it affects the kids and the people that they would come in contact with.
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Chapter 5: What led Dennis to collaborate with police departments?
Well, I was reporting what I found as a dad, as someone from a related area of work. I was interacting with the police, so operational policing was... not foreign to me. And it was troubling when I could find nothing out here. So when I wrote my first report and then the second one, it got a lot of attention, a lot of positive feedback. And we were living in Detroit at that time.
The Detroit Police Department heard me speak on it at a mixed day-long information exchange with folks with Alzheimer's, people with mental illness, and I was covering the autism issue. It was something fresh and new there. And DPD heard what I had to say, found it useful, and asked me to come into their training academy. That was 1995, so we're still doing it.
You've also worked with a lot of well-known police precincts across the country as well, correct?
The FBI accepted an offer for myself and a PhD from a curriculum project in Maryland in the late 90s. They accepted our proposal to publish in the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. And that just opened a lot of doors at the time. Yeah, NYPD, Chicago PD, now the Department of Homeland Security. It hadn't been created back in those early days. many other large and small agencies here in Canada.
Chapter 6: What training materials has Dennis developed for law enforcement?
It's taken me to the East, Southeast and the UK and
Now, you've done several books, but you've also done some films and videos to help them as well.
Yeah, and the belief here is if we want to help law enforcement discover that person they may be interacting with might have autism, the more people with autism that they get to view, see, and meet, whether it's on video or or alive, the better their outcome will be.
It's great to have talking heads such as myself with live variants, but nothing takes place of that kind of evidence, and it's memorable.
Do you do one-on-one in a police department where you have a group of police that are there and you talk with them about someone they may come upon that might be having a drug problem or they might be autistic but merely look like they're having a drug problem? Have you had those kind of conversations with them in some of your presentations?
Yeah, I would say, Tony, that every session that I do includes that.
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Chapter 7: How do police officers benefit from Dennis's autism training?
Yeah, I think that's a good thing. I spoke with a presenter the other day, and he told me of an officer that was highly trained in drug enforcement. Came across this person, had all the characteristics that he was high on drugs. He did everything by the book. Unfortunately, this person was autistic. Now, he was unaware. And he was in the process of actually arresting this person.
Thankfully, the mother was close by, came over, was level-headed, told the officer about the autism that her son had. Everything turned out all right. In any other situation, this could have gone the opposite way.
Nobody, even the greatest autism experts in the field of diagnosis can do a field diagnosis and say with absolute accuracy and certainty that this person's autistic. to bring up the potential that they might be autistic is where the training goes and showing some of the lived experiences where things could have turned out better and where training can address that.
So certainly the slang, the jargon, and the terminology that emanates out of the autism community is below haggard fruit here. So if you hear these key words, stimming, and many others, the best place you first want to hear them would be in the training room.
There's still no guarantee that this person is autistic, but there are street signs that I first became aware of in the late 90s, so traffic signs in neighborhoods, bumper stickers, hats, license plates. Half of the states, over half of the states in America, have an opportunity for anyone to purchase A specialty license plate features autism awareness and the word autism, I might add.
So all of this is part of basic scene assessment for risk that are specific to, again, low-hanging fruit is when you see these images, it gives you a green light to start talking about autism. There are also folks who choose not to disclose. So the word and the concept of disclosure is probably the law enforcement's biggest enemy here.
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Chapter 8: What strategies does Dennis suggest for autism awareness in law enforcement?
They don't know somebody is autistic or has mental health conditions or otherwise. It's kind of hard to shift your gears when some of the behaviors and characteristics that you're experiencing in the moment do ape people who are getting ready to commit a crime or who just have committed a crime. So disclosure becomes the enemy, but it's also your best friend when you have
In your travels, have you come across police during your training that they're listening to you talk about autism? And then after your class is done, they come up to you and they have more to thank you about other than just the training because they have autistic children as well. So you not only help their fellow officers, but you help them and their children as well.
Absolutely. The numbers were much smaller in the 90s and the early part of the 21st century. And I go out of my way as a presenter trainer to ask that those questions to elicit who's in the audience that I do that in minute one of the training. That's the first thing I do.
Yeah, that's true. What are you finding as far as their response? For the longest time, autism had a stigma attached to it. They didn't know much about it, so they didn't believe it because they didn't know it. Now they have someone like yourself with lived experience that's worked with other police precincts around the country. Now they understand that it is real.
So what's the response that you've been getting from them?
You mean family members who have an autistic child or anybody?
Anyone that you've been training or otherwise that just didn't realize what autism is.
The common feedback, and this dates back to the mid-90s Detroit Police Academy, is, hey, buddy, I really appreciate the information you had, if I'd have only known, because I have met folks like that throughout my career. I just didn't know it at the time. Right. So that kind of feedback, that it made sense, and it connected troubling contacts where they thrown for the loop here.
And we can also add in that autistic people, in spite of everything that we may be trying, can be aggressive to family members or people that they don't know, strangers. And if strangers are in uniform, there's the consideration of some use of force. So that is also addressed.
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