- Aug 6, 2012
- 28,029
- 24,836
- 2,405
Does the U.S apply this through your coroners in deaths of people in police custody? The article suggests they do.
As a coroner's jury takes their seats Monday in the inquest into the death of Myles Gray, they may hear arguments that his death was the result of something called excited delirium, and not the actions of Vancouver police officers.
Excited delirium has also been cited by Ottawa police officers in connection with the death of Abdirahman Abdi during a violent arrest, a coroner's jury looking into a death in a New Brunswick jail, senior RCMP officers after the death of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver's airport, and defence lawyers for the American officer who murdered George Floyd.
The highly contentious term describes a state of agitation, aggression and distress generally linked to drug use or mental illness, and it's been used as an explanation for sudden, unexpected deaths during interactions with police.
It was one of several possible explanations given by a forensic pathologist for the death of Gray, an unarmed 33-year-old who died in 2015 after being handcuffed, hobbled, punched, kneed, kicked, pepper-sprayed and struck with a baton by several Vancouver officers. He was making a delivery for his florist business at the time, and police had been called after he confronted a homeowner for watering her lawn during an extended drought.
But a major shift is underway, and medical examiners and coroners across Canada and the U.S. are starting to reject excited delirium as a cause of death. Both the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association have dismissed the diagnosis entirely.
As a coroner's jury takes their seats Monday in the inquest into the death of Myles Gray, they may hear arguments that his death was the result of something called excited delirium, and not the actions of Vancouver police officers.
Excited delirium has also been cited by Ottawa police officers in connection with the death of Abdirahman Abdi during a violent arrest, a coroner's jury looking into a death in a New Brunswick jail, senior RCMP officers after the death of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver's airport, and defence lawyers for the American officer who murdered George Floyd.
The highly contentious term describes a state of agitation, aggression and distress generally linked to drug use or mental illness, and it's been used as an explanation for sudden, unexpected deaths during interactions with police.
It was one of several possible explanations given by a forensic pathologist for the death of Gray, an unarmed 33-year-old who died in 2015 after being handcuffed, hobbled, punched, kneed, kicked, pepper-sprayed and struck with a baton by several Vancouver officers. He was making a delivery for his florist business at the time, and police had been called after he confronted a homeowner for watering her lawn during an extended drought.
But a major shift is underway, and medical examiners and coroners across Canada and the U.S. are starting to reject excited delirium as a cause of death. Both the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association have dismissed the diagnosis entirely.
