The photo is from: Jo Rose B (the young woman pictured above) - who added: 
"He was a good dude. Always down to “party” with us while being on duty."

This is Patrick Rader, photographed on duty at a Gallaudet campus party. He was one of the security officers who assaulted and abused my son Gio just before midnight—when what Gio needed was hospitalization, not handcuffs.

I’ve struggled with whether to say anything at all. All who knew Gio suffered deeply under the decisions and culture that defined DPS during Rader’s tenure. Gio—my brilliant son, who Caltech once scheduled to meet Stephen Hawking during his admissions interview—died under the ignorance of Gallaudet’s Department of Public Safety. That loss is not just personal. It’s a tragedy for the Deaf community and for everyone who values human dignity.

What’s especially difficult is seeing public tributes that recall Rader as “a good dude” who “partied with students while on duty.” Just look at the young student beside him—he was old enough to be her father. This wasn’t harmless fun. This speaks to a campus culture that blurred lines of authority and failed to protect the vulnerable.

Even the Dean of Students, Dwight Benedict, posted praise for Rader’s night shift. But when I challenged him on it—on that very shift that abused my son—he quietly deleted his post. The silence is deafening. The complicity, ongoing.

And yet… I believe every life deserves reverence at its end. So for this moment, I set my personal grievance down. Death humbles us all. May we be remembered in full—for both the good we did and the harm we caused. And may those who suffered still be heard, even amid eulogies.