Damion Hudlun was stopped by police as he rolled his wheelchair down the road to his home, he says.
To Damion Hudlun, the problem has a simple enough solution. If police don't want him rolling his wheelchair down the street he lives on, then put in some darn sidewalks.
Hudlun, 36, who was born with spina bifida and is confined to a wheelchair, says he was rolling down his Texas road over the weekend, when he saw a DeSoto Police Department cruiser slow down, flash its lights and turn in front of him.
"I was in the street, right next to the curb," Hudlun tells Inside Edition Digital Wednesday. "They pulled in front of me. Their bumper was almost on my chair," he said.
The officer "hops out and says, 'We can't have you in the street,'" Hudlun recounts.
It had been raining, and the landscape was soaked, Hudlun said. Besides that, there are no sidewalks on his street, so where else was he supposed to be?
"I said 'There's no sidewalk. You expect me to push my chair through mud and grass?'
The officer said he was concerned about safety, Hudlun says.
To which Hudlun says he replied, "If you're worried about saftey, how about getting some sidewalks put down here?"
Hudlun says he wheels himself down his road every day, to visit a nearby 7-Eleven convenience store.
"I'm very independent," he says. "I go everywhere in my wheelchair. My parents always taught me to be independent."
He was on his way home, with snacks and drinks, when he says he got pulled over Saturday and received a written warning for not facing traffic on the road.
"So he says, 'The next time I see you in the street, I'm going to have to give you a ticket,'" Hudlun says.
That doesn't make sense to Hudlun, or to his aunt, Evette Boyer, who posted Hudlun's warning citation on her Facebook page.
"I think what happened to him with the ticket is terrible. It makes no sense. He has no other option but to do what he did," she tells Inside Edition Digital.
There is no way for Hudlun to dodge traffic and wheel himself to the opposite side of the street, where he would be facing traffic, without putting himself in danger, she says.
"No matter what he does, his life is still on the line," she says.
Inside Edition Digital reached out for comment Wednesday to the DeSoto Police Department, but has not heard back.
"That simply is not how he should've been treated," his aunt says. "I was very upset for him."
Related Stories
