Are people in police custody dying of "excited delirium"?

[ecstatic]

...They draw their guns and move toward him. The man responds violently, hysterically, jabbing the knife at police. With six officers working together, they're finally able to restrain him and get him on the ground, but he's still thrashing around with what seems like superhuman strength. They start hitting him with their night sticks, and they keep hitting him until he calms down. But then they realize he's not just calm. He's dead.

In this theoretical incident, if the medical examiner can rule out the police beating as the cause of death and can find no clear indication of a fatal, biological occurrence, he or she may determine that the official cause is excited delirium. If ever there were a controversial diagnosis, "excited delirium" is it. It's not recognized by the American Medical Association as a medical condition, and you won't find it in the American Psychiatric Association's handbook of mental disorders, but it's the official cause in hundreds of "in-custody deaths" every year...

http://people.howstuffworks.com/excited-delirium.htm

[MadHound]

1. It's a cop out to get the cops off the hook

No, he didn't die from having the shit beaten out of him, he died from "excited delirium", a term that goes back to the early days of Western medicine, a catch all term used when nothing else would cover it.

[kurth]

2. Sounds like a bullshit name made up by some 19th-century quack

[tuckessee]

3. Gee, I dunno.....

...but maybe the part where "they start hitting him with their night sticks, and they keep hitting him until he calms down" may have something to do with it.

[DemGa]

4. A knee to the neck and chest compression works too

Perhaps citizens should start carrying anti-anxiety meds in the event of an impending attack.

[lojasmo]

5. My uncle did.....

WHILE BOUND, FACEDOWN, WITH HIS HANDS BEHIND HIS BACK, A SPITMASK ON HIS FACE, AND COVERED BY A COAT.