Six Flags discriminates against young man with Down Syndrome

Por Brenda Colón el April 13, 2017

A 21 year old young man by the name Omar and his mother Monica Guzman had planned to spend a fun day at the amusement park Six Flags Mexico on April 4, 2013. But this did not happen the way that they had planned it, because a park employee made the young man and his mother get down from a rollercoaster when they were just about ready to enjoy the ride. The employee had claimed that it was for the safety of Omar.

Not only did they get down from the ride, but Omar's mother had paid for the ticket in full, which was not a problem at first.

The problem here was that the park did not let them know that people with this syndrome might have some "restrictions". Restrictions that are to the discretion of the staff from the park, which made Omar's mom feel that this should be told to people before paying, so that they can consider to either purchase their ticket or not.

In a message posted on Facebook, this is what Omar's mom wrote:

"At the 'Alpine Flight' ride (rated as family-moderate) while already being seated with the seat belt on, the manager along with security personnel approached us to ask to get off immediately because people with down syndrome could not get on the ride and intimidating my son Omar, who repeatedly asked me, what did I do Mommy? Why is the police here for me? Being that we had gotten on this same ride on other occasions."

"To avoid any problems I decided to take him to the children's rides, even though he is an adult. There we got in line for the ' Elmer ride', where he had also previously gotten on. While in line for the ride the operator said that Omar could not get on due to his 'condition', even though the ride only had a height requirement of at least 51 inches."

"Upon entering the park we were not informed of these 'policies' for people with 'disabilities'. Nobody told us that we had to go through an 'evaluantion' by which we just entered the parafter paying for the adult ticket like anyone else. However, the treatment that Omar received was unfair, discriminatory and humiliating."