The Madison County (IL) coroner says a man who was arrested over the weekend after exhibiting bizarre behavior at a strip club here appears to have died of "excited delirium."Because it seems to me that all of the coroner's findings of "excited delirium" involve people who have been arrested. Some dude doesn't croak in his living room and there's an autposy finding of "excited delirium".
No, this "syndrome" only seems to happen to people in police custody.
Now I know that correlation does not mean causality. But isn't it high time that this "syndrome" received some serious and appropriately skeptical research?
I remember seeing an article in a medical journal ten or so years ago, and I assume that more research has been done.
ReplyDeleteChoke holds, tranquilizers, tasers, and restraints seem to kill an awful lot of people, though.
There's a wonderful line in Jean Genet's play, "The Balcony," to the effect that a dissident "Died of a heart attack" (pregnant pause) "while falling from the 25th floor of a government administration building."
ReplyDeleteOf course, that was meant as an ironic comment about official behavior in a police state. Oh, wait a second....
Yours crankily,
The New York crank
Of course, doing such research could lead to your deleria becoming excited...
ReplyDeleteSince, you know, American cops are murderous thugs.
NYC, there is a great exchange in Casablanca about the death of Señor Ugarte:
ReplyDelete"I am making out the report now. We haven't quite decided yet whether he committed suicide or died trying to escape."
For anyone interested, this is another blog I read on occasion. The blogger focuses on police/state abuses of all sorts. He's also a rather entertaining wordsmith.
ReplyDeletehttp://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/
Interesting chap. Seems to be a Libertarian, Christian Gun-guy of color. Not quite as eclectic as our Comrade perhaps, but I loves me some diversity.