The Kindness of Thieves

It is easy to become overly focused on the painful, tragic aspects of the work we do. After all, we devote our lives to making things better, and as much as we strive to celebrate our victories, we are constantly facing the struggles that make life so difficult for those with autism and for their families. But it remains important that we keep ourselves light in the face of pain, laughing at the funny things and cuddling up to the positives.
Here is a story with a happy ending, and the hero of the story is a bank robber. It occurred over a decade ago in upstate New York, but I recently came across the story and thought it would be an important thing to share with you.
Mike Fitzpatrick was 48 years old at the time. He was a simple, gentle man who, despite his autism, was able to drive a car, do his own shopping, and hold down a job as a night janitor in Syracuse. Police looking into the robbery of the Ontario National Bank in Clifton Springs, N.Y., eyed Fitzpatrick as the chief suspect. It so happened that Fitzpatrick visited Clifton Springs two weeks after the robbery took place, and the police observed him wandering in front of another bank there. They, perhaps understandably, took this behavior as suspicious and thought he was casing another bank to rob.
They picked Mike up at his job one night and interrogated him. He told the
police that in fact, he did rob the bank.Mike’s mother Anne explained: “Mike tries to please people. He thought in his mind if he told them what they wanted to hear, they’d let him go. He didn’t know that would complicate things.”
Of course, it did complicate things. The police charged him with bank robbery, which would have carried a 25 year prison sentence had he been convicted.
In comes David Harrington, the real bank robber. Harrington was already in jail awaiting trial for a string of other bank robberies, and when he heard about an autistic man being charged for a crime he did not commit, Harrington confessed to the Ontario National Bank robbery as well, telling the police details only the actual robber could have known. Charges were dropped against Fitzpatrick, and he returned to his janitor’s job. He said that he was grateful to Harrington for clearing his name.
To borrow from Art Linkletter, people with autism, like children, will often do or say “the darndest things.” Sometimes they will tell you the naked truth, and sometimes they will say what they think might work best for the situation, but it is the inability to read the subtle social cues and demands of the situation that can lead them down a dangerous path. It is this social “blindness” that becomes the center of our work as we progress through various treatment stages. As we educate the public, it behooves us all to express our gratitude to those who understand this “invisible blindness,” and to those thieves, like Harrington, who risk a bit of themselves to do the right thing.