About It's Medical Not Criminal

This project began with a moment that changed everything for my family. My dad suffered a massive frontal lobe stroke that left him with expressive aphasia. When he crashed his car into a restaurant drive-through, the responding officers assumed he was intoxicated, not realizing he was in the middle of a medical emergency. My aunt Marcia was with him that day and tried to explain what was happening, but her words were overshadowed by the officers’ assumptions. In those critical moments, what should have been a medical response turned into something that felt more like suspicion than help.

My mom also lives with seizures, which has given me another perspective on how neurological conditions affect communication, daily safety, and how people are perceived. These personal experiences opened my eyes to how easily medical and communication differences can be mistaken for criminal behavior.

Professionally, I work in healthcare and study criminology at the University of South Florida. I’ve seen how these misunderstandings can happen from both sides in the field and in theory and how much impact they can have on someone’s life. That’s why I created When It’s Medical, Not Criminal: to bring visibility to these issues, challenge harmful assumptions, and advocate for better awareness and training. This is about changing how medical emergencies are recognized and responded to, so that compassion and understanding guide those critical moments instead of fear or misjudgment.

I want this message to reach a wide range of people, especially those who play a role in how medical emergencies are understood and handled. That includes law enforcement officers, first responders, and community members who may witness these moments. I also want to connect with students and future professionals who can carry this awareness into their work and shape how situations are handled moving forward.

Just as importantly, I want to reach people who have been directly impacted by these misunderstandings. Their experiences and stories matter, and sharing them can help bring real awareness, humanize the issue, and push change forward. This space isn’t just about informing it’s about building a community of voices that can make a difference.