What is "excited delirium"?
I googled it. Here's what I found
(in wikipedia): Excited delirium is a condition that
manifests as a combination of
delirium,
psychomotor agitation,
anxiety,
hallucinations, speech disturbances,
disorientation, violent and bizarre behavior, insensitivity to
pain, elevated
body temperature, and superhuman strength.[1][2]
Excited delirium is sometimes called excited delirium syndrome if it
results in sudden death (usually via
cardiac or
respiratory arrest), a relatively frequent outcome particularly
associated with the use of physical control measures, including police
restraint and
tasers.[1][2]
Shockingly, African American men seem disproportionately disposed to
affliction by this medical condition.
You should read that last line carefully: death is a frequent outcome
"particularly associated with the use of physical control measures..."
How wonderful to be a short-tempered cop and have a syndrome that can be
applied to anyone with the indecency to die on you during a tasering.
How wonderful for a corporation to be able to invent and sell a syndrome to
explain why people die when using your product. (Yes, a victim is
"using" the product manufactured by Taser International.)
And here's the bottom line: neither the American Medical Association nor
the American Psychological Association recognize "excited delirium" as a
real medical or psychological condition. The standard authority on
mental illness, the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders) does not list it. Let the lobbying begin...
What will it take? A big fat donation to the right "charity"?
Future employment with lavish benefits to a current panel member?
Whatever... it's not that hard to do.
A real doctor talking
about excited delirium.
Have you heard about the new medical condition
that causes people in police custody to suddenly die? It's called
"excited delirium" and it is exacerbated by "multiple drug toxicity".
It also, don't you know, actually gives people "super human" strength.
I'll bet you thought that only happened in comic books!
Now, if you had a number of men who were drunk or high, and loud and
abrasive, or experienced a sudden influx of superhuman strength, there are many unfortunate things that could happen to them but
one of the least likely-- and veritably unknown before the use of the taser-- is sudden death.
But if you had an equal number of men who were tasered repeatedly by the
police, then thrown to the ground, hand-cuffed, and tasered again, we know
you will likely have a few deaths. In those cases, we hereby declare
that the deaths are caused by contagious "excited delirium" exacerbated by
"multiple drug toxicity". The superhuman strength is of no
avail in these situations.
I'll bet that right now, if you are a cop with a
taser, you are making a point of memorizing the phrase: "excited delirium"
and "multiple drug toxicity".
Some day, those words might save your career.
And I'll bet you
didn't know that "excited delirium" is not a real condition. It was
invented by the taser industry to explain those inconvenient deaths of
people being tasered.
*
Lest you think I am anti-cop... I'm not.
I'm only against bad policing.
I just saw a
documentary
on Frontline about a group of cops in New Orleans called to a bridge in
the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina because a man was seen with a gun.
Now, first of all, this IS America: what's the problem? Oh wait-- he
was a black man. Okay, so the cops pull up in a rented cube
van, two in the front and about eight in the back where they couldn't see
what was happening. As they are pulling up-- I'm not making this up--
one of the cops in the front fires a warning shot. Seriously.
A warning shot.
The rest of the cops in the back think there is something happening so they
quickly jump out of the truck and take positions and carefully assess the
situation to try to determine where the shots are coming from, how many
gunman are involved, if there are any civilians in the line of fire, and how
best to ensure public safety in the face of the threat.
Hoo ha! Had you! Just kidding, of course.
Actually, they jumped out of the van, guns a'blazin',
and shot wildly in all directions. Eight people were hit, two of them
fatally. Fortunately, no dangerous guns were found. At least, not on the civilians.
Well. Cops are under a lot of stress, you
know, what with all the bizarre super humans with excited delirium
going around. My theory is that these guys on the bridge were
displaying symptoms of "prescient excited delirium with multiple inactivity
inversion".
[Update: 2011-08-05. Apparently, the five officers involved have been convicted of... well, did you
think they would be convicted of murder? No. They were convicted of various civil rights
offenses, and covering up the shooting. They still complain bitterly that even though
Ronald Madison was running away from them at the moment he was shot, he still
probably would have had a gun if he could have and would have turned around fired it at
police if he had been what the New Orleans police thought he was.... wait--]
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