Repeated theft of road sign frustrates autistic child’s mom
The first time someone stole the Autistic Child traffic sign near her home at the corner of Sunnymeade Drive and Amberly Boulevard, Sarah Sounak put it down to a senseless act of vandalism.
The city replaced the yellow caution sign, which is on municipal property and faces onto Amberly, but it was stolen a second time last month. A third one went up three weeks later, only to be swiped again within two days.
And this time, the culprit also took the pole, making Sounak wonder if someone has a problem with the sign itself, especially since others in her Ancaster neighbourhood haven’t been targeted.
“I’m now truly believing that it’s somebody who’s just against an autistic child,” she says.
The city replaced the sign immediately, but Sounak says she’s so worried it will be stolen again she’s tempted to camp out in her backyard to catch the thief.
She says the sign is effective in slowing traffic and important to the safety of her eight-year-old daughter, Zoe, who is nonverbal and gets around with the help of her guide dog, Oxford.
“I wouldn’t have asked for the sign if I didn’t know my child has periodically run onto the road,” Sounak says. “Or if she ever got to the road, she could just hang out and stand on the road; she wouldn’t know any different.”
Ancaster Coun. Lloyd Ferguson, whose office expedited the latest sign replacement, says the culprit is breaking the law and will be charged with theft if caught. “It’s strange. I can’t for the life of me understand the motive for somebody taking that thing down repeatedly,” he says.
“It’s so benign. It’s a yellow cautionary sign just to caution people that there’s an autistic person who lives there and they should be extra careful, and why someone would be offended by that is beyond me.”
Ferguson understands Sounak’s frustration, but would encourage her to capture the
culprit on camera and let police handle the rest.
He says he understands Sounak already has security cameras on her home and can redirect
them toward the sign. “Any time we get anybody on camera doing that sort of thing, we have a 100 per cent success rate as police.”