Letter to the Editor: 'Excited delirium’ ridiculous

December 16, 2009
bclocalnews

Does anyone else find the RCMP/police-created term “excited delirium” for cause of death, as ridiculous as I do?

We, the public, cannot accept this created phrase from our Taser trigger-happy men/women in blue.

What’s next? “Yes, your Honour I shot the victim several times but he actually died from loss of blood. My actions certainly had little to do with his death, he must have been a hemophiliac or something.”

Or perhaps, “Sure, I stabbed the victim repeatedly, but he actually died from heart failure. He must have had an underlying heart condition, so how could my actions be accountable for his death?”

Repeated shocks of several thousand volts (sometimes over and over again) is the foremost and primary reason our fellow Canadians continue to be killed by the people in society we appoint to “serve and protect.”

Is there some sort of critical failure in the training of our police forces that these brave men and women feel the need to rely so quickly on such a dangerous weapon when faced with persons in distress or conflict? Have our police given up on communication skills, de-escalation techniques and other non-lethal alternatives?

The medical community doesn’t even accept “excited delirium” as a real term.

Jeff Leggat, Burnaby