Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Jerry Turning: From Officer to Advocate: One Dad's Mission to Bridge the Gap
Thu, 03 Apr 2025
Send us a textJerry Turning shares his journey from veteran police officer to autism advocate after his son's diagnosis, creating Blue Bridge Autism Training to educate first responders about autism. His unique perspective bridges the gap between law enforcement and the autism community, helping prevent dangerous misunderstandings during crisis situations.• Turning spent 22 of his 25-year police career as a canine handler before his son's autism diagnosis changed everything• Police often misinterpret autism behaviors as intoxication, evasiveness, or defiance due to lack of training• Turning teaches officers to recognize autism indicators like stimming, echolalia, and sensory challenges• First responders need to understand they're entering high-stress environments where families may struggle to communicate clearly• Registration systems allow families to pre-record information about triggers and de-escalation techniques• Parents should proactively introduce their autistic children to local police during calm periods• Simple community connections often prove more effective than formal training alone• Both police and families benefit from approaching these situations with humility and opennessTell everyone everywhere about Why Not Me? The World, the conversations we're having and the inspiration our guests give to everyone everywhere 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 Jerry Turning and what is his story?
Hopefully, you gain more awareness, acceptance, and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me? The World, Humanity Over Handcuffs, the Silent Crisis special event. Join us today as we host Jerry Turning, a 12-year veteran officer and respected canine handler and trainer in the police force.
His life took a profound turn with the arrival of his autistic son, prompting him to establish Blue Bridge Autism Training. This organization provides autism response training to police, first responders, and search and rescue professionals around the world. We're delighted to share his inspiring story on the show. Thanks for coming on. Oh, it's my honor. Thanks for having me.
Oh, it's my pleasure.
Chapter 2: How did Jerry Turning transition from police work to autism advocacy?
If you would, tell us a little bit about what you do. I'm a retired police officer. I retired about four years ago from a police department here in New Jersey. Spent 22 out of my 25 years of my career in canine. In 2007, my son was diagnosed with autism. He's only turned 21 in June. And when that day happened, I had already been a cop for a long time.
I thought I knew about this stuff, but when a doctor says those words to you, when a doctor sits across the desk and tells you your son is autistic, it has a way of rearranging your life a little bit. In a flash of lightning, I realized that I had a lot to learn about this topic.
As a dad, for personal reasons, I had to get to work and I had to start studying this and learn what this was and what it meant for my family. As I went on, started that process, it became clear to me that what I was learning as a dad was directly relevant to what I should know as a cop. The spark was lit at that point.
Pretty early on in my son's diagnosis and getting an education on what autism was, I started as best I could in my own area regionally, just educating other cops and first responders about this and teaching them about people like my son.
it was cool i was doing it through my department through my agency as i was going through my career and then when i retired in 2021 jumped full bore into it and created a company called blue bridge autism training this is what i do now i travel across the country as often as my family will tolerate and i teach cops and first responders and anybody who will listen to me talk about these amazing people trying to bridge that gap and just make the world a little bit a little bit safer than when i found it and that's kind of my mission
I think that's a great mission to have. So you kind of got trained by your son and now you're helping others because you're finding out that you didn't know exactly what you thought you knew. Right.
I think it might be a generalization, but I think police officers specifically, we're not lacking in confidence, in self-confidence. I think it's an important part of the job. You have to believe in yourself and believe in your instincts and abilities. So early on, the first 10 years of my career, I had never received any formal training on autism or anything like it.
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Chapter 3: What challenges do police face when interacting with autistic individuals?
I had seen some depictions in Hollywood. I'd seen some TV shows. I thought, okay, I get it. I know what that is. And I was arrogant enough to believe that what I didn't know, I could just trust my instincts and muddle through if I ever was confronted with an issue, including, by the way, some serious issues.
I was the guy with my dog you would dispatch to find these individuals when they go missing. The old adage is you trust your dog and you don't overthink it. But In reality is we put our dogs in a position to succeed.
So that arrogance that I thought I knew enough about this, when my son was diagnosed, it became clear to me that just by the grace of God, that first 10 years of my career, I had gotten lucky. That I didn't get in trouble, that I didn't get either physically hurt or legally hurt based on the ignorance of what this was. And it was a really, really stark reminder that we have to stay humble.
And there's a lot that we have to learn in law enforcement about a number of subsets of our population, but this one especially. And the reality is a lot of the behaviors that present from somebody who's on the spectrum, whatever their degree of affectation, a lot of the behaviors...
mimic what we're taught in the police academy to be um characteristics of somebody who's intoxicated under the influence of narcotics somebody who's being uh evasive or trying to hide something eye contact is a real good example of that one and a lot of these areas when i do this training i do it yes because i want to make the officers better public servants of course i
I present it in a way like, guys, listen to me. Yeah, I want you to be motivated to be better public servants, but I also want you to be motivated that you are exposed to risk and liability here. We make these split-second decisions based on our training and instincts. We make hundreds of those decisions a day. A lot of them culminate in taking somebody's civil liberties from them temporarily.
A lot of them significantly impact lives.
in this particular sliver of our job our training and instincts and experience can mislead us and they can lie to us you'll be interviewing somebody or talking to somebody and you'll swear that that person is either under the influence of something or is being evasive or is being disrespectful or a number of different things where 99 times out of 100 you're right he's hiding something but that one out of 100 times where there's something else at play or that individual is there is no malice there is no intent to deceive there is no disrespect
That's where we are exposed to some dangers there. So when I deliver the message that way, I see body language change. All of a sudden, these officers who, you know, they're being respectful and they want to learn. But when I turn it and say, listen, give yourself permission to be selfish here. You're exposed. You're exposed to some risk and liability. I see the light bulbs go off at that moment.
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Chapter 4: What inspired Jerry Turning to educate first responders about autism?
He came down to the precinct, explained everything, smile. They left, no problems. Now, unfortunately, there are some cases that don't turn out that good. How do you get that across to the police officers you're speaking with so they can make that decision as quickly as they need to sometimes so that it ends in a good situation for everyone involved?
Well, first of all, I start here, and you have to stipulate this. This stuff is hard. This is a challenge, right? And anybody who teaches this from a holier-than-thou point of view will lose the room. I think that's why I'm good at what I do, because first of all, I've done this job for a long time. I have been in the situation you just described. I have been the officer dispatched to the houses.
These people are having an emotional crisis with their child. I have been the guy tasked with finding these individuals when they go missing. I also have been the father. I've been the dad who is scared to death to call 911 for assistance with my son because I don't know the guy coming through that door.
And I don't know if he's going to be the right makeup, the right insights, the right education about what this is. to help? Or is he going to come in and pour fuel on a fire? And two things wake me up these days, two things, including last night. Number one is who's going to take care of my son when I'm gone.
The other one is what happens if my son, who's now six feet tall, 200 pounds, meets somebody I call brother, an officer out there, and they misunderstand him, mischaracterize who he is, what he is, and hurt him. That drives me.
That alone, Tony, when I convey that message to these officers, listen to me, please understand, I am not one of these voices screaming about defunding the police and calling you all bullies and thugs. I am not that. I need you to understand I'm an ally for you, okay? I also stipulate this stuff is hard. If this stuff wasn't hard, if it was easy and intuitive, they wouldn't need me.
and you wouldn't see these videos going viral on on youtube of officers making mistakes i have to gain their trust first once i have that it doesn't doesn't take a lot we can cops are pretty pretty good at reading reading the room explain that i want the lessons i'm going to teach you are based on failing i fail miserably weekly with my son
And a lot of the things we're going to talk about are not intuitive. A lot of the things that I've, that I grew up, I'm a conservative guy. I always believe in discipline and rules are rules and all of these things. Sometimes with a certain subset of our population that is growing, right? Those rules don't apply.
Don't you wish that you just had a piece of paper that you could hand out? Then say here, this is it. This is all you have to do.
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Chapter 5: How can first responders better handle situations involving autism?
I explain it with stories from my own personal family and stories from my professional career. And I trust them to be nimble and agile in that moment, to use the glimpse I can give them into our world and be professional. When you say, like, how do you teach them to know the difference? I can't. I can give you some general things.
Like, you know, we go over a lot of the sensory challenges for individuals on the spectrum, sensory processing challenges, and how that can directly impact behavior. And all I try to do is plant seeds, just have their radar pinging that this individual that you run into in the back of some woman's yard at three in the morning. Yeah, chances are that person's a predator.
Chances are the person's, you know, up to no good. But I just want to plant the seed in your head that as you're interviewing them, start to look for these characteristics, these traits that just, I call it a glitch in the matrix. They're not responding to you the way a typical quote unquote criminal would.
And if you can start to look at these indicators, like hand flapping, toe walking, things like scripting and echolalia and pretty common behaviors for the autism community, if you start to look at them and wear them on top of each other while you're having these interactions with these people, you'll see that it'll lead you to a different conclusion than you otherwise would have.
and not rely on, well, he wouldn't look me in the eye or make eye contact, so that was proof of guilt. It's evidence of guilt. He was being evasive. He's trying to hide something. A lot of times that's true.
I don't want to downplay the validity of that interrogation and interviewing because it's reliable, statistically proven, except for roughly 2% to 5% of our population where that rule doesn't apply. I offer insights. I offer information. I offer glimpses into our world without seeming like I am coming down on them as ignorant thugs for not knowing this. You know what I mean?
And I think that approach is critical.
Absolutely. I can see that. Now, I've got a reason for asking this question. What were some of the things that your son was doing or not doing which led you to get him diagnosed for his autism?
Oh, back in the day? Well, in 2007, I was a bonehead. I handled my son's diagnosis about as poorly as a parent could. My wife knew well before I did. Her radar was pinging on this really, really early. I mean, like a year and a half. And, you know, all the things. Your son stops, you know, he doesn't hit his milestones. He's not pointing at objects that draw his attention. He really...
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Chapter 6: What personal experiences led Jerry Turning to focus on autism training?
Yeah.
So when they go into a situation like that, that's called in as domestic violence, but it's just an autistic meltdown. It can get violent, of course, but it's still just an autistic meltdown with a kid that can be six foot, 250 pounds, that can make the house look like a tornado just went through it.
What type of approach do you tell them to do so when they do go into it, they don't treat it like a normal domestic violence situation that got out of control?
Yeah, you're right. And it's funny, the worst possible day, the worst day of the year to be a police officer is, well, there's two. There's Christmas Eve and Thanksgiving. It's because that's when all families get together. That's when families get together and old arguments and old grievances pop up. It's terrible. It's because of the domestic situation. And it's a really great question.
One of the examples I give is... You're a police officer, you're patrolling a zone in your city, and you get dispatched to, let's say, the parking lot of Walmart. The way this happens is really interesting, where the mom who has a child who's on the spectrum, the child is having whatever, a sensory meltdown, whatever it is, and she's struggling to get him in the car. It's nobody's fault.
But what happens is a well-meaning bystander, let's say a nice elderly woman's in the parking lot and she sees something like this mom struggling with her son and calls 911, trying to be a good public servant. When she calls 911, it comes to that 911 center a certain way. Usually it's this man is assaulting or fighting with a woman. something like that.
That dispatcher takes that information, puts it in a computer and dispatches a police officer. The way that dispatcher puts in the call in that computer is domestic assault in progress. The officer receives that information and he wants to respond to that parking lot, right? You would not be a human being if that didn't land with you a certain way.
When we hear domestic assault in progress, we go into a certain mode. We're rushing to get there. We want to save this woman from being assaulted. We want to take care of business and lock up this guy. And who does this guy think he is? And what kind of a bully hits a woman? You would not be human if you didn't go into a mode when that happens. And I explained to them, I'm not blaming you at all.
I was that guy. All I'm saying is be careful. And when you get there, if you hear that mom screaming, he's autistic, he's autistic. This is my son.
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Chapter 7: How do domestic situations differ when involving autistic individuals?
However, though, when you have a woman on the phone calling 911 saying, I need help with my son, he's autistic and he's nonverbal and he's having an emotional crisis. I have a very low bar at this point. I need that to land a certain way. I need them to understand that that information that she is giving you is important.
And if you don't translate that to the officers who are responding to that call, we have a problem.
Yes. And emotions are running high at that point.
And we gotta be honest too, a lot of times families don't know how to communicate this. And especially when you're in the heat of a moment and it's an emergency, you lose your ability to think clearly and offer information that would be important. So having these communications professionals know to tease this information out and get this information that is important
not just operating by, well, anything important. She's going to offer it. That mom, of course, she's going to tell me if this person is nonverbal. No, you can't rely on that. She may not. And believe me, again, from failure, I've lost my son five times, lost him in his life, you know, requiring help. And I was a level-headed cop.
I think I was involved in some pretty hairy things and got through it well. When you lose your child or you're dealing with an emotional crisis, like at that level with your own child, rational thinking is not easy, even for the best of us. And that stress and trauma will rob you of your ability to properly communicate things, even things that seem logical.
Of course she's going to say on the phone that her child is autistic and nonverbal. No, no, you'd be amazed that they just can't properly put it all together and communicate it.
Well, it's the adrenaline and it's just pushing them to another level.
But there are other tools now, and this is really important. We're getting on top of this now. We're wrapping our brains around this now in my community and law enforcement and first responders. And now there are tools like registries.
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