One time when I lived in Hawaii, I had snuck into an apartment’s hot tub with a girl. When leaving, I saw this massive tree of a Hawaiian man, and I’m 6’3”, so this guy was huge. This man was screaming and hitting his wife, who was trying to run away. I yelled out to distract him so she could get away. Before I could even comprehend it, he had run across the street and was right in front of me. I was a very well trained martial artist at the time and I was scared for my life, this guy was clearly high or crazy. I jumped on a ledge where he couldn’t reach me, and he ran off after the wife. I pounded on people’s doors until the cops came and saw them try to talk him down. Three cops tased him before he went down, but then he pulled them out, stood up, and punched the window out of a nearby jeep. He was eventually subdued.
A cop later told me that this was fairly common in that area, because of PCP use.
I’m amazed this guy came out of it alive because of how easily he shrugged off tasers.
‘Excited delirium’, used by police to justify brutality, is junk science
11–20 of 62 posts
Re: ‘Excited delirium’, used by police to justify brutality, is junk science
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the Wikipedia article you linked: "The condition is not recognized by the American Psychiatric Association, American Medical Association or the World Health Organization." It's under the section titled "Controversy_related_to_policing_techniques".[1] Just because something is well-known and documented doesn't mean it's recognized as a medical or psychological condition. Sometimes it can be that medicine hasn't c…
Yes, it is controversial for being used as a justification for police brutality and having been involved in a lot of bad incidents. But the existence of it is not controversial, as it is basically a subset of affects of substances such as methamphetamine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine#Adverse_effect... . Does it need its own specific name and label? perhaps not, and that is part of why some organizati…
Ok...but that implies these cops may be doing coke and meth on the job, since the article says that those drugs "commonly cause" it. Surely that's an even bigger problem than "excited delirium".
EDIT: I'm an idiot.
Re: ‘Excited delirium’, used by police to justify brutality, is junk science
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, it is controversial for being used as a justification for police brutality and having been involved in a lot of bad incidents. But the existence of it is not controversial, as it is basically a subset of affects of substances such as methamphetamine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine#Adverse_effect... . Does it need its own specific name and label? perhaps not, and that is part of why some organizati…
Ok...but that implies these cops may be doing coke and meth on the job, since the article says that those drugs "commonly cause" it. Surely that's an even bigger problem than "excited delirium". EDIT: I'm an idiot.
I think you've misunderstood, excited delirium is claimed to be present in the individual the cop is arresting, not in the police themselves. The reason they attempt to justify greater force is in order to protect themselves from someone in such a state. I'm not agreeing with this, just stating what they would say.
Re: ‘Excited delirium’, used by police to justify brutality, is junk science
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the Wikipedia article you linked: "The condition is not recognized by the American Psychiatric Association, American Medical Association or the World Health Organization." It's under the section titled "Controversy_related_to_policing_techniques".[1] Just because something is well-known and documented doesn't mean it's recognized as a medical or psychological condition. Sometimes it can be that medicine hasn't c…
Yes, it is controversial for being used as a justification for police brutality and having been involved in a lot of bad incidents. But the existence of it is not controversial, as it is basically a subset of affects of substances such as methamphetamine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine#Adverse_effect... . Does it need its own specific name and label? perhaps not, and that is part of why some organizati…
It's not accepted as a standard treatment, that's the key. The second key point is it's used as an excuse for violence. Same thing with pray gay away type treatments to convince men they aren't gay. Those are now illegal in many states.
Similar things, bogus classes on checking if you are high - like your eyes move in a certain way, or when driving your tire touches the white line. Cops take these classes and use them for justification. See also, pulling drivers over if they are certain minorities (driving suspiciously).
Re: ‘Excited delirium’, used by police to justify brutality, is junk science
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok...but that implies these cops may be doing coke and meth on the job, since the article says that those drugs "commonly cause" it. Surely that's an even bigger problem than "excited delirium". EDIT: I'm an idiot.
I think you've misunderstood, excited delirium is claimed to be present in the individual the cop is arresting, not in the police themselves. The reason they attempt to justify greater force is in order to protect themselves from someone in such a state. I'm not agreeing with this, just stating what they would say.
Oops. Completely misread the article. I'll leave my comment up with a note, and wear my shame.
Re: ‘Excited delirium’, used by police to justify brutality, is junk science
#16Excited delirium is a very well-known and documented phenomenon, primarily in individuals that are on excessive doses of stimulants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excited_delirium#Cause However, nothing about its existence implies anything about police brutality. For some reason the article thinks it needs to deny the existence of something that obviously exists in order to argue against police brutality. This is a s…
This is a very oddly written article.
> Excited delirium is not recognized by some professional medical associations
If you go to the reference for that, it mentions that it's not recognised by _any_ professional medical association.
Re: ‘Excited delirium’, used by police to justify brutality, is junk science
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the Wikipedia article you linked: "The condition is not recognized by the American Psychiatric Association, American Medical Association or the World Health Organization." It's under the section titled "Controversy_related_to_policing_techniques".[1] Just because something is well-known and documented doesn't mean it's recognized as a medical or psychological condition. Sometimes it can be that medicine hasn't c…
Yes, it is controversial for being used as a justification for police brutality and having been involved in a lot of bad incidents. But the existence of it is not controversial, as it is basically a subset of affects of substances such as methamphetamine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine#Adverse_effect... . Does it need its own specific name and label? perhaps not, and that is part of why some organizati…
there is already amphetamine psychosis, etc.
i think the issue is inventing some quasi-illness which might really be one or several other things, but conveniently describes the exact set of symptoms that can be used to justify use of force (so basically it's a way to dress up 'he was acting crazy' and sound legitimate by calling it an 'illness' when you over react)
Re: ‘Excited delirium’, used by police to justify brutality, is junk science
#18How long are we going to keep ignoring the fact that statistics do not show any racial bias in police killings, and if anything they show bias against white perpetrators rather than black?
Re: ‘Excited delirium’, used by police to justify brutality, is junk science
#19How long are we going to keep ignoring the fact that statistics do not show any racial bias in police killings, and if anything they show bias against white perpetrators rather than black?
I mean, if you have citations for these, trot them out.
Re: ‘Excited delirium’, used by police to justify brutality, is junk science
#20Excited delirium is a very well-known and documented phenomenon, primarily in individuals that are on excessive doses of stimulants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excited_delirium#Cause However, nothing about its existence implies anything about police brutality. For some reason the article thinks it needs to deny the existence of something that obviously exists in order to argue against police brutality. This is a s…
> However, nothing about its existence implies anything about police brutality.
As I read it, the article didn't seem to be implying that the existence of "excited delirium" itself implies something about police brutality. I took their argument to be that police departments' misapplication and/or overuse of the concept had led to increased instances police brutality. Not knowing anything else about this issue, it doesn't seem implausible to me that training police officers, who generally lack medical diagnostic skills, to constantly anticipate a human threat with superhuman strength and no sense of pain might lead to an increase in the use of excessive force.