Alex LaMorie had just moved into a new apartment in late February.
The 25-year-old man was excited to join Patuxent Commons, a new housing community in Maryland structured for residents with autism or other disabilities. The apartment also moved him closer to his mother and stepdad, said Ami Neiberger, a close friend of the family.
On the morning of Feb. 28, just as he always did, LaMorie texted his mom an inspirational quote, Neiberger said.
“Life is too short to be mad at everyone, so I’m nice to almost everyone instead,” the text read.
Hours later, his mother received a frightening phone call from her son. He told her he was in suicidal crisis and had called the police for a wellness check, part of a safety plan he had in place, Neiberger said. His mother called a suicide hotline and was patched through to Howard County police, telling them he was autistic and at risk of harming himself.
Officers who responded to LaMorie’s call early on March 1 found him outside the apartment building holding a knife, police said. Two of the officers at the scene had undergone crisis intervention training for handling such incidents, Howard County police said. When LaMorie didn’t drop the knife after repeated commands, state officials said, three officers shot him as he approached them. He died at the scene.
While the Maryland attorney general’s office investigates the shooting, LaMorie’s family and advocates say they want answers and accountability.
“Every parent of a child with autism knows this is their worst nightmare,” his mother, Jill Harrington, said in a statement shared by Neiberger. “Alex was in crisis and called for help, and first responders must be better trained to prevent tragic outcomes instead of contributing to them.”
A generous voice
Those who knew LaMorie say he regularly used his voice to advocate and offer support for other autistic people.
He spoke on podcasts and gave interviews and presentations as an advisory board member for the Autism & Grief Project, an effort from the Hospice Foundation of America for autistic adults who are dealing with loss, foundation President Amy Tucci said in a statement. LaMorie often teamed up with his mother, a licensed therapist who specializes in grief counseling.
LaMorie shared how his personal experience, including the deaths of his father and grandparents, could help others.
“Sometimes people will, a lot of the times, try and use techniques that work for regular people,” LaMorie said in a video, but that doesn’t “always work with autistic people who are grieving.”
Tucci said the foundation “loved working with Alex. His intelligence and kind manner left a lasting impression on all of us.”
In a written Q&A with Autism Speaks, a national advocacy organization, LaMorie said he liked to write action and horror stories, inspired by Iron Man and Captain America. He also detailed his struggles after being formally diagnosed with autism at 13, including times he was hospitalized after a severe mental health crisis.
Being autistic, LaMorie said, “I hear things, see things, feel things that other people don’t, both in a good way and a bad way.” Still, he said, “autism makes me unique, and it’s helped me meet a lot of the people I care about.”
LaMorie earned an associate’s degree from the University of Maryland Global Campus. He also wanted to pursue either a bachelor’s degree or a certificate in IT, Neiberger said.
“Alex was a kind, loving, and enthusiastic person,” his family said in a statement, and “the light of his doting big sister’s eyes and the best friend to his step-father, siblings, uncles, cousins and many others.” They also noted that the family had ties to law enforcement and the military.
LaMorie was dedicated to “keeping himself healthy and stable,” his family said. “If the circumstances required, he had a safety plan and knew to call others for help.”
LaMorie had been living on his own for four years before moving to the Patuxent Commons complex, Neiberger said.
Patuxent Commons opened in November in Columbia, Maryland, about 26 miles from Washington. The complex was designed to be a national model for inclusive living and built with accessibility in mind, said Katie Collins-Ihrke, executive director of the Arc of Howard County, a disability rights organization. In addition to serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, the apartment complex accommodates older adults and families with subsidized units. It also holds events to encourage community engagement, Collins-Ihrke said.
LaMorie attended the ribbon-cutting for the complex in the fall after being accepted via a lottery to get in, Neiberger said. He had been at the apartment for three days before his death.
“It was created for Alex and for people like Alex,” said Collins-Ihrke. “That’s what makes it so heartbreaking.”
A call for help
Just after midnight on March 1, Howard County police responded to a call from an adult male who was threatening to hurt himself, the Maryland attorney general’s office said in a news release. Officers arrived at Patuxent Commons but couldn’t find LaMorie inside.
When they left the building, the release said, officers saw LaMorie “walking toward them from the parking lot with a knife in his hand.” After officers commanded him to drop the knife, officials said, he kept walking toward them. Three fired their guns, fatally striking LaMorie.
Police recovered a knife, officials said. The officers who fired their weapons — Joel Rodriguez, a two-year veteran, Cody Bostic, a six-year veteran, and Joseph Riebau, a 10-year veteran — are on standard administrative leave, according to the department.
Bostic declined to comment when reached by phone. Efforts to reach Rodriguez and Riebau were unsuccessful. A union representing Howard County Police officers did not respond to a request for comment.
As part of its investigation, the Maryland attorney general’s office will review anything captured on the officers’ body cameras. The footage could be released within 20 business days of the shooting, according to the office.
In recent years, Maryland has embraced more training for officers on how to better interact with people with disabilities — changes sparked, in part, by the police killing of a man with Down syndrome in Frederick County in 2013.
Leigh Anne McKingsley, senior director of disability and justice initiatives at the Arc of the United States, said officers are often trained to take control of a situation. But, she said, “that can backfire when it comes to someone with disabilities who may not even understand what’s going on.”
McKingsley acknowledged that officers tend to get more training on the use of tactical skills, which can lead to responding with lethal force during a crisis, rather than verbal de-escalation skills. “We have to make sure there’s a balance,” she said.
Howard County police said two of the officers in the March 1 shooting were trained to be members of the department’s crisis intervention team, while one was a specially trained negotiator. About 80 percent of the department’s officers have received the 40-hour training that specifically teaches how to “more effectively and safely interact with people with mental health issues,” the agency said.
Howard police also partner with the Grassroots Crisis Intervention center and Humanim to staff two mobile crisis teams, in which mental health professionals respond with officers to “incidents of longer duration.” They did not respond to the call at Patuxent Commons, the agency said.
Families can also register for a program with the 911 dispatch center to provide information to police before they arrive, such as whether the person has autism, a physical disability or a mental health diagnosis. LaMorie, a new resident of Howard County, was not registered.
Howard County Councilwoman Liz Walsh, who represents District 1, said it is critical to ensure that the county is “sending the right team that that person in crisis needs.”
Christiana Rigby, who represents District 3 on the council, said in a statement that LaMorie’s death has “deeply shaken our community and the residents of Patuxent Commons.” She added that this affects others’ willingness to call 911 for help.
“It is crucial that this relationship is repaired and restored within the broader disability community,” Rigby said.
After the shooting, the Autism Society of Maryland and Mission First Housing Group, which developed Patuxent Commons, said the organizations support the law enforcement investigation. They also said they had provided grief counselors for residents and staff.
As LaMorie’s family grieves, they still have questions about what happened that early Sunday morning. Harrington said in a statement sent through Neiberger, the family friend, that while officers asked her son to drop the knife, “who knows if he even heard them.” She also reiterated that he was “in suicidal crisis and stated so.”
“As a parent of a child with autism, just like I have always done for the love of my child, I am now his victim advocate,” Harrington said. “We are horrified and are suffering more than the horrors of traumatic grief — we are suffering the systematic, betrayal-based moral injury that comes when those sworn to protect choose to end a life instead of exhausting every effort to save one.”
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