Group of doctors withdraws article on ‘excited delirium,’ a term used to justify excessive force

A leading group of doctors on Thursday formally withdrew its endorsement of a 2009 paper on excited delirium, a paper that critics say has been used to justify excessive force by police.

In a statement, the American College of Emergency Physicians called the paper outdated and said the term excited delirium should not be used by members who testify in civil or criminal cases. The group’s directors voted on the issue Thursday in Philadelphia.

That means if someone dies while in custody… people can’t cite excited delirium as a reason and can’t cite CAPE’s endorsement of the concept to strengthen their case, said Dr. Brooks Walsh, a Connecticut emergency room doctor who pushed the organization. to strengthen its position.

Earlier this week, California became the first state to ban the use of excited delirium and related terms as a cause of death during autopsies. The legislation, signed Sunday by Gov. Gavin Newsom, also prohibits police officers from using it in reports to describe people’s behavior.

In March, the National Association of Medical Examiners took a stand against the term, saying it should not be listed as a cause of death. Other medical groups, including the American Medical Association, had previously rejected excited delirium as a diagnosis. Critics have called it unscientific and rooted in racism.

The 2009 emergency doctors’ report said symptoms of excited delirium included unusual strength, pain tolerance and bizarre behavior and called the condition life-threatening.

The document reinforces and codifies racial stereotypes, Walsh said.

The 14-year-old post shaped police training and still figures in cases of deaths in police custody, many of which involve black men who died after being restrained by police. Lawyers defending the officers cited the newspaper in admitting testimony about excited delirium, said Joanna Naples-Mitchell, an attorney and research adviser for Physicians for Human Rights, which last year produced a report on the diagnosis and death in police custody.

In 2021, the emergency doctors’ document was cited in the New York Attorney General’s report on the investigation into the death of Daniel Prude, a 41-year-old Black man. A grand jury dismissed charges against police officers in the case.

Excited delirium emerged during the 2021 trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was later convicted in the death of George Floyd. This fall, the term resurfaced during the ongoing trials of police officers accused in the deaths of Elijah McClain in Colorado and Manuel Ellis in Washington state. Floyd, McClain and Ellis were black men who died after being restrained by police.

The emergency physicians group had previously distanced itself from the term, but it did not go so far as to withdraw its support for the 2009 document.

“That’s why we pushed to issue a stronger statement explicitly disavowing this document,” Naples-Mitchell said. This is a chance for CAPE to truly break with the past.