With the symptoms and dangers of excited delirium now well-publicized and solidly confirmed by numerous research studies, agencies that fail to have a response protocol in place are inviting needless liability problems, according to a day-long presentation recently at a training seminar sponsored by the Illinois Tactical Officers Assn.
“Usually administrators start to take notice of this problem when they have a sudden in-custody death,” said the featured speaker, Lt. Michael Paulus, a certified Force Science Analyst and 25-year veteran of the Champaign (IL) PD. “But that’s too late. Agencies need to change their approach and get ahead of this problem in order to have different results.
“It doesn’t cost big bucks to put an effective protocol in place, it doesn’t require new equipment, and it’s much more cost-effective than settling or losing a lawsuit. As education about excited delirium spreads, it gets harder for agencies to say they didn’t know about the problem and the need to address it.”
(Ed. note – I personally find it concerning that this administration’s DOJ is encouraging departments to not read Garrity to officers and instead obtain voluntary statements. While Hoag makes good points, I worry about the DOJ using voluntary statements against an officer in a bogus federal investigation in civil rights cases. After all, our current president has been outspoken in the past about police “acting stupidly” even though he (President Obama) admitted he didn’t know all the facts.)
In a case with important training implications, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the West Coast has ruled that a municipal patrol officer who killed a suspect when she confused her M26 Taser with her Glock pistol was not entitled to a summary judgment in her favor on the basis of qualified immunity.
