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“Clearly, the responder lacked the knowledge on how to manage the situation; to minimize harm to the child and others.”

All Calgary police recruits take a 32-hour communication and de-escalation course as part of their training, as well as classroom and scenario training with the police and crisis team on how to work with people suffering from mental illness.

They also receive specific training from the Schizophrenia Society of Alberta, and the service says officers are trained not to diagnose mental health issues when responding to calls.

Les Kaminski, president of the Calgary Police Association, said officers receive comprehensive de-escalation training and the officers involved in the incident “welcome the investigation so that all details surrounding this incident come to light.”

“We are very concerned about this young boy and what his family must be going through,” he told Postmedia in a statement. “We take these matters seriously.”

An independent review of the service’s use of force recommended reinforced officer training around mental health, as well as tougher recruit requirements to weed out those who show explicit bias.

While some officers know how to de-escalate an autistic person in crisis, Parakin said many officers have been known to “default” to their training on dealing with a non-compliant drug user when confronted with an autistic subject.

“Depending on certain kinds of drugs being taken, the person may need the kind of physical restraint that this officer went into,” Parakin said. “Those same symptoms are identical to the symptoms of people with autism — symptoms of autism can be masked as the symptoms of someone on a serious street drug.”

ASIRT investigates any incident where police action could have caused serious injury or death.

The agency has previously said it will not provide any updates on this case until its investigation is completed.

RRumbolt@postmedia.com

On Twitter: @RCRumbolt