‘Excited delirium’, used by police to justify brutality, is junk science • Hacker News Board

Re: ‘Excited delirium’, used by police to justify brutality, is junk science

#41

Post by cwkoss » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 7:27 PM UTC

I heard someone claim that Excited Delirium idea is being spread by Axon (Taser company) lobbyists as a way of justifying the deaths of victims of improper taser use.

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=762231...

"But according to civil-liberties groups and legal filings, Taser may have financial reasons to support — and even encourage — the use of the excited delirium diagnosis.

Take the case of Frederick Williams. On a grainy video, Williams is screaming, 'Don't kill me! I have a family to support. I've calmed down!" as several officers carry him into the Gwinnett County Detention Center in a suburb of Atlanta. One officer takes out his Taser and fires it directly onto Williams' chest.

The officer yells, "Relax! Stop resisting!" But the shock keeps jerking Williams' chest upward. As several officers hold Williams down, he is stunned six more times. A few minutes later, the officers realize Williams is not breathing. Williams died a few hours later.

Williams' family is now suing the county and Taser International. The company has made it clear in proceedings so far that it intends to argue Williams died of excited delirium — not because of the Taser or excessive force. The medical examiner could not determine the exact cause of death."

Re: ‘Excited delirium’, used by police to justify brutality, is junk science

#42

Post by jokowueu » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 7:42 PM UTC

cat199 wrote: post #17

ve55 wrote: post #10

Earlier 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…

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)

The thing is that there are similar substances that are not in the amphetamine class that cause similar effects . Example would be the less common experiences some people get with PCP

Re: ‘Excited delirium’, used by police to justify brutality, is junk science

#43

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 7:46 PM UTC

triceratops wrote: post #7

ve55 wrote: post #5

Excited 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…

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…

[deleted]

Re: ‘Excited delirium’, used by police to justify brutality, is junk science

#44

Post by SrslyJosh » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 7:57 PM UTC

ve55 wrote: post #5

Excited 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…

> Excited delirium is a very well-known and documented phenomenon, primarily in individuals that are on excessive doses of stimulants

"Well-known and documented" by the police, I think you mean.

Did you read what you just linked?

From the wikipedia article:

> Excited delirium is not recognized by some professional medical associations.

> EXD has been accepted by the National Association of Medical Examiners and the American College of Emergency Physicians, who argue in a 2009 white paper that "excited delirium" may be described by several codes within the ICD-9.

Imma repeat that for you:

> may be described by several codes within the ICD-9

In other words, "excited delirium" is not the diagnosis a physician would give.

Re: ‘Excited delirium’, used by police to justify brutality, is junk science

#45

Post by mistermann » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 7:58 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #36

at_a_remove wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if you have citations for these, trot them out.

The police kill more white people in absolute terms than black people. But white people are a larger percentage of the population, so it's still disproportionately black people. But the disproportionality goes the other way if you account for the difference in violent crime rates. Then someone could argue that the difference in violent crime rates is itself a result of racism, and someone else could argue that that i…

It would be nice to see one well done summary analysis of all the data that is available, including inclusion of as many as possible of reasonable "...but on the other hand..." caveats as possible. I have not once encountered a single article that even attempts this, it seems everything is written from a biased perspective.

Re: ‘Excited delirium’, used by police to justify brutality, is junk science

#46

Post by mzs » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 8:24 PM UTC

It also works in practice almost half the time in states that allow the defense to reduce a conviction from murder to manslaughter, and not only for police, cause juries are made up of humans.

Re: ‘Excited delirium’, used by police to justify brutality, is junk science

#47

Post by _Nat_ » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 8:27 PM UTC

If you want to say someone's toe hurts because they stubbed it, you can refer to it as "stubbed toe pain". Even if "stubbed toe pain" isn't an official diagnosis in some health organizations, that doesn't mean it's junk science.

I don't get why the article's attacking the term "excited delirium" in the first place, though. I mean, do the authors think that the correctness of police-brutality hinges on whether or not there's such a thing as "excited delirium"? Do the authors think that, if there's such a thing as "excited delirium", it'd justify police-brutality?

Re: ‘Excited delirium’, used by police to justify brutality, is junk science

#48

Post by whymauri » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 8:51 PM UTC

Simulacra wrote: post #25

triceratops wrote: post #7

Earlier 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…

It is curious that the section you identified was added June 17th, 2020.

The world and its policies exist before they are documented on Wikipedia. What is your point?

Re: ‘Excited delirium’, used by police to justify brutality, is junk science

#49

Post by Digit-Al » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 8:56 PM UTC

triceratops wrote: post #15

ve55 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Have an upvote for your mature response. If more people were willing to own their mistakes instead of hiding or doubling down, the world would be a better place :-)

Re: ‘Excited delirium’, used by police to justify brutality, is junk science

#50

Post by GaryNumanVevo » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 8:57 PM UTC

cwkoss wrote: post #41

I heard someone claim that Excited Delirium idea is being spread by Axon (Taser company) lobbyists as a way of justifying the deaths of victims of improper taser use. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=762231... "But according to civil-liberties groups and legal filings, Taser may have financial reasons to support — and even encourage — the use of the excited delirium diagnosis. Take the case of Fr…

Also, tasers regularly kill people with no underlying health conditions, typically the autopsy will say "heart issue due to drug use" or something along those lines. Whenever there's a taser involved death, Axon has a "response team" which works with police to ensure "correct" death classification.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-taser-deaths-insight/...