Right here and right now there is a Civil Rights Movement going on, people are taking to the streets to protest, speaking out to the government on what they want to see change.

Progress has been made so far Elijah McClains case is getting reopened, many companies and schools are committing to helping their POC students feel more welcome, and some schools like mine are having town halls to talk about how we can become better allies to the movement. More people are even promoting black-owned businesses, and watching movies like Just Mercy and Selma to educate themselves.

There has been progress however we still have a long way to go and there are many things that still need to be changed.

One of the things that I would like to see change is how POC Autistic people are treated by the police. Some of them are not able to unmask safely in public, one of those people was Matthew Rushin.

Matthew Rushin is a 21-year-old college student, who loves poetry, playing piano who is currently serving a 50-year sentence for a car accident which was mistaken for a suicide attempt he said the "wished he was dead" but all of that was actually a meltdown caused by sensory overload, sometimes autistic people can panic when they are in a situation like this. Seventeen officers on the scene interrogated him while he was in meltdown and panic mode. And Rushin was not the only one either.

When the accident happened, Rushin was on his way home from Panera where we worked at picking up pastries and then he accidentally struck a moving vehicle which hurt a 72-year-old man, Rushin did not intend to hurt anyone and he took a plea deal that his mom says he didn't even understand. His mother has since said that he has not been given mental health care or medical attention to the injures he gotten in the crash.

He also has PSTD from a previous crash that he had been in, in which he had a traumatic brain injury from a previous accident in which he got a traumatic brain injury

After the death of George Floyd more and more attention has been brought to Rushins case, and being on the spectrum myself I believe more attention needs to be brought to how the police handle autistic people especially those who are POC.

How is it that Brock Turner has been in jail for less time than Matthew Rushin? How is it that murderers and rapists have been set free because of the coronavirus but Matthew Rushin still is in jail?

We need to bring Matthew home, he needs to be with his family, he needs medical treatment that he is not getting, he needs to be out of that sensory overload environment, he needs to be back home.

Let us be the change right now, let us be the ones that help bring Matthew home once and for all, this is a call to Governor Northam and we will even try President Donald Trump here, to pardon Matthew I hope this will get someone's attention. Please help this man have a future, he doesn't deserve to be in jail.

Free Matthew Rushin Petition

Matthew Rushin Legal Fund