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City council member crawls on Denver debate stage due to lack of wheelchair access

Napoleon said:
Have you ever been backstage before?
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Maybe we will hear from a professional who has probably been on more stages more times than most of us combined. He also knows a great deal about accessibility and people who use power chairs. FYI everyone, "electric chair" is not the preferred term.

What say you @Checkerboard Strangler ?
 
Napoleon said:
Sounds like a stunt to me. Why couldn’t he enter in his chair from the wings instead of making a spectacle of himself?
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Thank you for able body-splaning this to everyone...
 

Here's a statement from the venue.

 
I suppose he could have hoped to make a dramatic point...but the more reasonable explanation is that he couldn't access the stage another way.

Remember the prof who litigated against Delta after being forced to crawl across the tarmac? https://www.medicaldaily.com/disabl...eclining-help-him-enter-and-exit-plane-249191

Distinctions must be made between legal and ethical compliance too. I found myself in huge trouble years ago when serving on my institution's safety committee when plans were being drawn up for three new buildings. I expressed my concern about repeating a design flaw in those plans and was promptly put in my place because, of course, we were in total legal compliance with the ADA. And those buildings were, in fact, constructed repeating the error.

So if you're taking classes in a multi-story building that has no interior stairs and the elevator breaks down or put out of service because of the emergency, I guess you just sit there in your chair and die. How are you going to get down a set of steep concrete stairs with a landing at the halfway point that pools water?

But hey, legally, the institution did nothing wrong.
 
That's an ADA violation right there.
 
There was no wheelchair stage access, period.

No crippled guy performing a stunt.

CRPD is used as a public venue, how many decades after the ADA Act, they should not need "special" requests for "additional or enhanced [i.e. basic] accommodations" in advance.

 
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