(Photo: by EDUARDO MUNOZ ALVAREZ/AFP via Getty Images)A demonstrator is arrested by police officers during a protest on April 29, 2015, at Union Square in New York, held in solidarity with demonstrators in Baltimore, Maryland demanding justice for an African-American man who died of severe spinal injuries sustained in police custody.
On Thursday, a prominent doctors' organization publicly retracted its endorsement of a 2009 article on "excited delirium," which opponents claim has been used to support disproportionate police force.
The American College of Emergency Physicians stated in a statement that members who testify in civil or criminal proceedings should not use the term excited delirium and that the report was out of date, according to The Associated Press.
In Philadelphia on Thursday, the group's directors cast their votes on the subject.
The Cause of Death
The use of excited delirium and associated words as a cause of death in autopsy was for the first time prohibited in California earlier this week. The law, which was approved by the governor on Sunday, forbids police officers from using it to describe people's behavior in reports.
The National Association of Medical Examiners declared that the word should not be included as a cause of death in March, taking a stance against it.
The American Medical Association and other medical organizations had previously disapproved of the diagnosis of enthusiastic delirium. It has been criticized for being unscientific and racially motivated.
Excited delirium is characterized by exceptional strength, pain tolerance, and weird behavior, according to the emergency physicians' 2009 study, which also referred to the illness as "potentially life-threatening." According to Walsh, the paper supported and formalized racial stereotypes.
The 14-year-old publication still plays a role in police custody death cases, many of which involve Black individuals who died after being restrained by police, and it has influenced police training.
Read also: Seattle Pays Price for 911 Blacklist Error, Settling Wrongful Death Lawsuit for $2 Million
Many Attorneys Have Used the Study For Defense
According to Joanna Naples-Mitchell, an attorney and research adviser for Physicians for Human Rights, which published a study last year on the diagnosis and deaths in police custody, attorneys defending officers have used the paper to admit testimony about excited delirium.
The report by the New York attorney general on the investigation into the death of Daniel Prude, a 41-year-old Black man, in 2021 cited the emergency physicians' article. Charges against police officers in that case were dismissed by a grand jury.
Excited delirium was discussed in the trial of Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer who was eventually found guilty in the killing of George Floyd, in 2021. The phrase was brought up again this past fall during the continuing legal proceedings against police officers accused of killing Manuel Ellis and Elijah McClain in Washington and Colorado, respectively. Black men Floyd, McClain, and Ellis died as a result of police restraint.
The group of emergency physicians had previously distanced itself from the word, but it had refrained from ending its support for the 2009 study.
Related article: New York Police Agree to New Rules on Protests After Legal Battle
