‘PUBLIC HUMILIATION’

Denver Councilman Forced to Crawl Onto Debate Stage With No Wheelchair Access

Chris Hinds, who uses an electric wheelchair, said he would have had to forfeit about $125,000 in campaign financing if he’d skipped the event.

A Denver city councilperson who uses a wheelchair said he was humiliated and dismayed after an election debate on Monday evening was held in a venue without wheelchair access, forcing him to crawl onto the stage while in full view of the crowd. Chris Hinds, who is running for reelection, said he had had no choice but to participate in the debate. Had he refused, according to The Denver Post, he would have had to forfeit roughly $125,000 in campaign financing. “It was a choice between my campaign’s viability or my dignity,” he told the Post. Worse still, after getting out of his electric wheelchair, which weighs about 600 pounds, he told Denverite, organizers were unable to lift it onto the stage. The debate ultimately took place off the stage. “The whole point of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was passed a lot more than three decades ago,” Hinds explained to Denverite, “was that we wouldn’t have public humiliation like this.”