KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A cop. A traffic stop. Suddenly, he pointed his gun toward her son, shouting for him to get out of his car.
Ten months later, Megan Brown still wells with tears when she thinks of the tragedy that might have befallen her son, Mason Ott of Kansas City, North — then 21 and diagnosed with autism — on an afternoon last year before Thanksgiving when a Kansas City police officer sought to stop him for alleged speeding not far from his Northland apartment.
She also swells with pride at Missouri’s newly signed “Mason’s Law,” enacted in July in her son’s name and designed to help protect other drivers like him with autism, special needs or various disabilities. It’s a law that she and others hope could become a model for the nation.
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“I mean, I was fearful he could have been shot,” Brown said of the frightening event that led to the state law, sponsored by Republican Rep. Chris Brown (no relation) of Clay County. “I just remember all that week thinking — especially with Thanksgiving that week — I remember thinking, ‘I could be without a kid.’”
42 mph in a 35 mph zone
Ott’s experience was fraught. But it’s one that will now lead to a system by which law enforcement can use license plates to determine whether a driver has autism or other special needs that may prevent the driver from responding to an officer’s instructions.
It happened around noon on the Monday before Thanksgiving, Brown, Ott’s mother, said.
Her son, she said, has autism, but he is generally high-functioning. He attended Staley High School and graduated in 2022. He was an equipment manager for the football team there and took part in student council, she said.
After high school, he attended the University of Kansas’ two-year TPE, or Transition to Postsecondary Education, program — a certificate program for young adults with intellectual disabilities. He received job skills and left, his mother said, with as many as 26 credit hours.
Ott lives in his own Northland apartment. He currently works at a supermarket on North Oak Trafficway. He earned his driver’s license at age 18 and has a white 2014 Ford Escape.
Brown said that, as the story was recounted to her by police, her son was in the Northland, driving alone on Maplewoods Parkway, when he drove through the underpass where Missouri Route 152 passes overhead.
A police car was there and, as an officer later told Brown, the officer clocked her son on radar going 42 mph in a 35 mph zone.
“I was surprised, because Mason — he’s a rule follower,” Brown said. “He’s very diligent.”
Gun drawn: ‘Stop! Stop! He has autism.’
The police officer turned on his flashing lights. Brown said she and her former husband had long taught their son that if a police car’s lights went on and an officer sought to pull him over, he should “go to a safe place to pull over.”
Brown said a deputy told her that her son initially pulled over. The police officer pulled in behind him.
After the fact, Brown said she now sees the error. Her son takes instructions literally.
“We never said, ‘You need to stay there,’” she said.
As the officer drove in behind Ott, Ott pulled back onto the road and away from the officer. Driving 35 mph and using his blinker, he headed to his apartment about 1.5 miles away.
“There was, like, no high-speed, nothing,” Brown said.
Ott pulled into the parking lot of his apartment near the complex’s front office. As police video would later show, the officer left his vehicle and drew his police sidearm.
“He has his gun drawn, going toward the car, ‘Get out with your hands up!’” Brown said. “Mason freezes, like he just freezes and doesn’t do anything. So then the employees of the apartment complex run out. They’re like, ‘Stop! Stop! He has autism.’
“The police officer responded, ‘Get back, get back,’ not knowing what was going on. Finally, it somehow got de-escalated.”
The police officer, together with Ott and the apartment employees, went into the complex’s office. They called Brown.
‘I just started bawling’
Brown lives in Lawrence and was working when the event occurred. She got a call saying her son had been pulled over, but she was not then aware of all the details. Brown called her former husband, Ott’s father, who lived nearby. Ott’s father soon called Brown to tell her that the officer had drawn his gun.
“I fell,” Brown said. “There were some stairs there, and I just fell. I was burying my head in this towel and I just started bawling.”
Over the following days, weeks and months, Brown sought both answers and the police body-camera video, which she ultimately received. She also spoke to friends, including other parents with children with autism, about the risk to their children should they not be able to comply appropriately with police instructions at a traffic stop.
‘We have to do something’
One parent, Lauren Ray of Kansas City, has a son, Sam, 17, who also has autism. He doesn’t yet drive but may one day.
“She wanted to share with me Mason’s story,” Ray said, “because she was worried that Sam would have reacted the same way, which I truly believe he would have.
“I mean, you always have that fear, as a parent, of how your child will react, whether they’re typical or atypical. But this situation never even crossed my mind. That’s why when Megan shared it, I was like, ‘We have to do something.’”
She did. She contacted Chris Brown, her state representative, whom she had known for years.
“Chris knows I have a son with autism, so he knew it was near and dear to me,” Ray said. “And he knew of Mason.”
Brown, in his years before becoming a state representative, had been a teacher at Oak Park High School.
“He was my history teacher,” Ray said.
She told Brown of Ott’s experience. Although Megan Brown had been given some advice by police should the event ever occur again — drivers should turn on their flashing hazard lights to signal to police that they intend to comply with a request to pull over — it hardly seemed enough.
In Texas, Megan Brown discovered, the state offers “autism awareness” specialty license plates. Drivers who are hearing-impaired or who have communication disabilities can also register their cars in a way that makes law enforcement aware of the disability when officers run a license plate through their computer system.
A new system
With the Legislature in its December recess, Brown promised that he would raise the issue when lawmakers returned to session in January.
He did.
In March, both Megan Brown and Ray testified in support of a system that would allow not just drivers with autism but any individual with special needs or a disability to register a car with the Missouri Department of Revenue.
Under the law, a physician must provide certification that an “applicant or the applicant’s child, parent or spouse has a physical or mental health condition that is likely to impair the ability to effectively communicate with law enforcement.”
The physician must also certify that the individual is likely to have the communication impairment for at least five years. The system is not yet operational, but it is expected to be in place in early 2027.
Using their in-car computers or the MULE, or Missouri Unified Law Enforcement, system, officers will be able to run a license plate and know in advance whether the driver has a communication problem.
“I also have a niece and nephew who are not driving yet but are hearing-impaired and have cochlear implants,” Ray said. “So when I testified, I brought up those examples as well, because should their batteries go out or become broken, or they lose their cochlear implants — if a police officer was pulling them over, they’re not going to hear.
“I mean, it’s all aspects. If there’s a medical diagnosis — from a mental disability to a physical disability, or even PTSD — if you have a medical diagnosis that would hinder how you would respond in an emergency situation, it’s just — it’s a win-win for law enforcement and for the individual.”
We can do better and I was like, ‘You’re right’
Brown, the representative, sees it similarly.
“I’ve been in the Missouri House now for six years,” said Brown, who is running for reelection in November. “One of the cool things about this bill is it was absent lobbyists. It was absent big business. It was literally two moms — one of the moms had an unfortunate situation with law enforcement. It was so organic. They called me up and said, ‘Hey, we can do better.’ And I was like, ‘You know what? You’re right.’
“The hope is that it’s going to help law enforcement do their job better. It’s going to help them have a better understanding of possibly who is in that car or vehicle. And it’s obviously going to help protect people who are behind the wheel.”
People like Mason Ott, who received no traffic citations after the incident and said of the law, “It will be really helpful.”
Brown said she is glad and relieved her son is safe.
Until the new system is in place, he has a bumper sticker that says, “Autistic driver. Please be patient,” which gives her mixed feelings. While it raises awareness, she said, she also fears it could make her son vulnerable to people who might want to take advantage of him.
Now, she said, her goal is to get the word out about a law that she sees as helping many.
“I never expected it to be named after him,” Brown said. “When Chris Brown said, ‘We’re going to name it ‘Mason’s Law,’ I just started crying. I just thought it was amazing.”
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