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> Media PoolUndetermined: How a 9NEWS investigation led to the elimination of a controversial term
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Description
For decades, when someone suddenly died in law enforcement custody after forcible restraint, a two-word term came to the proverbial rescue: excited delirium.
Think of it like an idea that a body can become so excited and the mind so delirious that the heart just shuts down. Once cited in an autopsy or police report, “excited delirium” serves to offer a counter-narrative to the potential dangers of the restraint.
Officers trained on it, medical organizations backed it, prosecutors cleared officers due to it, and journalists bought it.
There’s just one big problem: Few bothered to question it.
That lack of skepticism fueled a yearlong investigation by 9NEWS that linked more than 225 deaths across the United States to the term. “Undetermined” – named after the proclivity of coroners to classify the causes of these deaths in such a way – prompted the state of Colorado to change how it trains all new officers in late November.
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