An expert on excited delirium is reaching out through Force Science News for first-hand accounts from officers who have encountered suspects high on so-called “bath salts.” At least one LEO—a sheriff’s deputy from Mississippi, responding to a disturbance call—has been killed, reportedly by an offender under the influence of psychoactive bath salts. In that case,...Read More
Sudden deaths, which are often seen as an in-custody police problem, in reality occur with significant frequency from “natural causes” in the general population and are related to cocaine abuse in at least 3 out of every 100 cases, according to a new study. Researchers analyzed 668 sudden deaths across 32 months, and in none...Read More
It’s now official: In a move strongly supportive of law enforcement, a special investigative task force of the American College of Emergency Physicians has formally declared that the violent and sometimes lethal phenomenon known as “excited delirium” really does exist. Some police critics have insisted that ED is nothing more than a convenient concept “manufactured”...Read More
[View this article with photos on PoliceOne.com] A technique for “working smarter rather than harder” to restrain unusually strong, combative subjects was described by an advisor to the Force Science Research Center at a recent international conference on in-custody deaths that featured presentations by nearly 20 of the world’s leading authorities on excited delirium (ED)....Read More
Looking for guidance on a protocol for Excited Delirium calls? A recently updated training bulletin from San Jose (CA) PD might be a good starting point. “It’s the closest thing to a policy on the subject that I’ve been able to find,” says Wayne Schmidt, executive director of Americans for Effective Law Enforcement, the organization...Read More
Two perspectives on law enforcement’s role in the violent human meltdown known as excited delirium faced off on National Public Radio recently, in broadcasts that have themselves become controversial. On one side in the 2-program report were 2 police critics, a staff lawyer with the ACLU and the director of a California “watchdog” group called...Read More
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck, right? Not always. Especially when “it” is “excited delirium,” the complex phenomenon currently regarded in law enforcement circles as the likely cause of many in-custody deaths. What appears to be the often-irreversibly fatal physical and mental meltdown...Read More
To read about the hyperaggression and superhuman stamina of a suspect in the throes of excited delirium is one thing. To experience it face to face with your life on the line is vastly different, especially when one of your .40-cal. rounds has blown up your attacker’s aorta and another has drilled into his spine...Read More
DIRECTOR’S NOTE: One of the missions of the Force Science Research Center is to bring the latest research (ours and others) to the law enforcement community. Excited Delirium is a very high profile, significant social problem that although rare in occurrence has been very costly to the LE in terms of the health and safety...Read More
