ABSTRACT
One of the biggest personal challenges and stress-inducing situations facing the street officer today is when someone is uncontrollable and then dies during attempts to effect an arrest. Despite the cause or origin of the medical crisis that ensues during or after a struggle with police or corrections officers, the responding officer is nearly always immediately blamed. Some of the finger pointing has led to criminal charges being levied upon officers, dividing the community and fueling the decrease of public trust. Typically, officers are exonerated only after lengthy litigation, with the inevitable inclusion of dueling medical experts on both sides. The result is of great cost to the department and the officer’s well-being. What is often overshadowed is the toll that an unexplained death can have on family members of the deceased who do not understand why their loved one was “beat to death” by police with no evident or conclusive cause of death. Only in recent years has a condition been recognized and generally accepted by those in the medical community [1-3]. Dubbed as the salvation for wrongly accused officers, this condition
ExDS Defined 202 Meanwhile, in 1849… 203 Stimulant Drugs 204 Hyperthermia and Other Clues as Police Converge 204 Insensitivity to Pain and Superhuman Strength 205
Period of Peril 206 Autopsy Findings 206 Police Response Must Mitigate Negative Outcomes 207
Identify 208 Control 210
Taser-Related Death 211 ExDS Deaths with No Taser 213 Police Can Be Their Own Worst Enemy 214 Information Sharing 214 References 218
has quickly became the catch-all diagnosis for anyone who does not comply or fails to thrive when arrested by police. With the proper recognition and response by police and medical personnel, these individuals in grave danger can be helped, thereby preventing or mitigating negative outcomes.
