Colorado may soon bar police and coroners from referencing "excited delirium" in lethal force cases
Colorado may soon become only the second state in the country to ban the use of a controversial and pseudo-scientific term called "excited delirium."
The now-debunked diagnosis has been widely used by police and paramedics to justify the use of force -- even lethal force -- in cases where they say suspects exhibit superhuman strength and extreme agitation.
Last week, California became the first state to ban any reference to excited delirium in coroner reports, law enforcement reports and civil court cases. Now, Colorado may follow its lead.
Excited delirium has never been supported by scientific studies, there's no diagnostic code for it, or tests to confirm it and yet, until a few years ago, not many questioned it.
It came under scrutiny as high-profile cases like Elijah McClain, George Floyd and others made headline news.
McClain, a 23-year-old Black man from Aurora, died after a violent encounter with police and after being injected with ketamine by paramedics.
On the same day that a jury issued a mixed verdict in the trial of two of the Aurora police officers charged in connection with McClain's death, the American College of Emergency Physicians voted to rescind a paper it issued 14 years ago on "excited delirium."
The emergency room doctors are the last major medical group to conclude excited delirium is not a valid medical or psychiatric diagnosis, and yet, it is still used to train law enforcement in Colorado and to explain sudden deaths in police custody.
The Adams County Coroner initially listed excited delirium on McClain's autopsy.
"We know this is junk science and we have to stop using it," says State Rep. Judy Amabile.
She plans to introduce a bill that would bar the term from being used in police training and coroners reports, "we should focus instead on helping them to understand what really is happening with that person and then what are the right strategies."
Amabile says excited delirium is often used in cases where people are experiencing psychosis or under the influence of drugs, and it is overwhelmingly used in interactions involving young Black men: "More than 50% of the deaths have been people of color. If you have psychosis and you're a person of color, the results are so disastrous for you."
The term is not only used to justify the use of force but the use of ketamine, as was the case for McClain.
"People have not been found guilty of any crime at the point where they're interacting with the police and they're paying the ultimate price and that is a wrong we need to right," says Amabile.
She does not expect much, if any, opposition to her bill that she is co-sponsoring with Rep. Leslie Herod.
Herod passed a law two years ago that says paramedics can't use excited delirium as a justification to inject someone with ketamine.
The new bill will also bar the use of similar non-medical terms like hyperactive delirium, agitated delirium and exhaustive mania.
It does not address how police will be retrained after years of being conditioned that excited delirium is real and requires a certain response but Amabile hopes training will be focused on de-escalation techniques.
