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Speaker 1: Genocide ship. Okay, fuck um Sophie helped me out here.

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Speaker 1: I was just shouting genocide. That's not a good way

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Speaker 1: to open a podcast. Um No, that's basically the same

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Speaker 1: as shouting genocide. Um. This is Behind the Bastards in

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Speaker 1: the podcast not once been introduced like an actual professional.

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Speaker 1: One time you did it like so proci But you

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Speaker 1: were doing a bit. Oh, I was doing a bit.

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Speaker 1: That must have been the ascid episode. I've forgotten which

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Speaker 1: episode was the won't tell me? Will tell me your series?

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Speaker 1: Of Which episode do you think Robert was fully on

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Speaker 1: acid for when we recorded? It's one of the older episodes. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, and if you're really really Behind the Bastards

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Speaker 1: fan trying to figure out which one I was just

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Speaker 1: fucking blazed on two c I for. But that's a

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Speaker 1: story for another day. This is Behind the Bastards podcast,

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Speaker 1: worst people all the history. Tell you all about him?

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Speaker 1: My guest today, Mr Ben Bolan, Ben, how are you doing?

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Speaker 1: I'm so excited, you know, guys, it's it's it's a

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Speaker 1: wild time. I snuck into this office where I'm sitting

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Speaker 1: in the darkness at turn Off Video because wifi' is weird,

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Speaker 1: because everything is kind of terrible in general. Uh, but uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's a it's a bright light, uh, to

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Speaker 1: to be together with you guys today. I wanted to

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Speaker 1: tell you I was talking Robert was Sophie earlier. I

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Speaker 1: really enjoyed the episode you guys did on the Protocols

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Speaker 1: of the Elders of Zion. I thought that was a

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Speaker 1: protocol stand. I'm really sad that that doesn't have his

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Speaker 1: video on because I would have loved seen your face too.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, because I thought it was stuffed people.

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Speaker 1: UM need to know about the genesis or the evolution

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Speaker 1: of that kind of stuff and just how dangerous it is.

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Speaker 1: So I wanted to just shout out that episode in particular. Um,

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Speaker 1: and I do wish I had I wish I had

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Speaker 1: the video on. I think all three of us are

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Speaker 1: far flung across the country right now, but it's really

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Speaker 1: great to see you guys scattered to the winds. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's great to kind of see you and your Mark

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Speaker 1: Ruffalo icon. Yeah, Ben, this is actually speaking of the

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Speaker 1: Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This has been a

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Speaker 1: great week for genocide, or I should say this has

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Speaker 1: been a great week for recognizing historical genocides media. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: well what what where? This has nothing to do with

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Speaker 1: the episode, but I think it's nothing pretty rad. Joe Biden,

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Speaker 1: recognized for the was the first American president last week

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Speaker 1: to recognize the genocide of the Armenians that started in

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifteen and hasn't really ended by a lot of accounts, um,

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Speaker 1: which no other president had the had the cojones to

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Speaker 1: do up until now. And the best thing that well,

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Speaker 1: not the best thing about it, but a rad thing

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Speaker 1: about it, is that urda One, the dictator of Turkey,

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Speaker 1: um shot back at the United States by threatening to

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Speaker 1: recognize the genocide of the Native Americans that the US committed.

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Speaker 1: And so we're now in this it's like Cold war

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Speaker 1: nuclear brinksmanship, but with the recognition of historic crimes against humanity.

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Speaker 1: And I'm yeah, yeah, let's keep recognizing genocides. Yeah, like, hey,

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Speaker 1: watch out, buddy. I might also start telling the truth

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Speaker 1: to school children. Yeah, I'll talk about all the horrible things.

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Speaker 1: You're cut good, let's throw be in here, fuck it,

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Speaker 1: let's recognize all the genocides. Um. So yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: actually one of those weird times where like stupid political

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Speaker 1: dick measuring is seeming seems to be objectively Pause. Now

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Speaker 1: everybody's talking about different genocides committed by imperial powers, which

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Speaker 1: I'm supportive of, so good, good speaking of genocide, Ben, Wow,

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Speaker 1: you can make a case that American policing has a

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Speaker 1: lot in common with different genocidal regimes throughout history, namely

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Speaker 1: in the use of state power to oppress specific racial

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Speaker 1: and religious groups. M m m m. That's kind of

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Speaker 1: what we're talking about. Not not not quite, but we're

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Speaker 1: talking about Have you ever heard of the term excited delirium? Ben,

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Speaker 1: I have actually heard of the term excited delirium. Though,

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Speaker 1: I am going to be honest with you, Robert Sylphe,

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Speaker 1: I am not caught up with the textbook definition there.

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Speaker 1: What are we talking so excited delirium? In short, just

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Speaker 1: to introduce the concept is a lot of doctors would

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Speaker 1: argue is a faked disease invented by police to justify murder.

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Speaker 1: And that's what we're talking about today. Now the story

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Speaker 1: gets much more complicated and shady than that. This is

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Speaker 1: a wheel really gonna piss you off? Um, But I

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Speaker 1: think I should start um with kind of the most

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Speaker 1: recent touch point for the term excited delirium, which was

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Speaker 1: the killing of George Floyd by now convicted murderer Derek

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Speaker 1: Chauvin UM, formerly a police officer. When Derek Chauvin put

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Speaker 1: his knee in his entire body weight on George Floyd's

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Speaker 1: neck for like eight minutes or so, uh, the other

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Speaker 1: cops present with him knew that something was wrong. One officer,

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Speaker 1: a fellow named Lane, asked Chauvin should we roll him

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Speaker 1: on his side. Chauvin declined, saying no, staying put where

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Speaker 1: we got him. Officer Lane then said, I am worried

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Speaker 1: about excited delirium or whatever. Now, first off, that's a

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Speaker 1: very casual or whatever or whatever. Right, yes, whatever. Whenever

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Speaker 1: somebody adds or whatever at the end of a sentence,

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Speaker 1: that means they don't care. That's like when somebody adds

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Speaker 1: for you at the end of a compliment that means

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Speaker 1: they don't like you. Yeah, it's it's Can you imagine

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Speaker 1: like going into the doctor and being like, yeah, your

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Speaker 1: kidneys are probably shutting down or whatever, like you you

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Speaker 1: would you would not feel great about that doctor. Yeah. Um.

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Speaker 1: So the way he used it, excited delirium may kind

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Speaker 1: of seem like a nonsense term to you, even if

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Speaker 1: you are a medical professional. I know we have a

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Speaker 1: number listening, because most doctors do not recognize excited delirium

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Speaker 1: as a thing. If you don't know the history I'm

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Speaker 1: about to go over today, that term probably flew over

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Speaker 1: your head. Is just a piece of cop jargon. Um,

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Speaker 1: someone who isn't a doctor trying to diagnose a man

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Speaker 1: struggling to breathe. But the reality of what that term

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Speaker 1: means and how it's used is actually much more sinister

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Speaker 1: than that. You might be aware that the initial press

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Speaker 1: release the Minneapolis Police sent out after Floyd's death was

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Speaker 1: man dies after medical incident during police interaction, um, which

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Speaker 1: is yeah, medical and sid it. I mean technically that's

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Speaker 1: like you shoot somewhat to death and you're like, well,

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Speaker 1: he had a medical incident as a result of the

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Speaker 1: lack of blood in his body, and it's like, that's

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Speaker 1: not inaccurate, but let's tell THEO. But anyway, you're probably

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Speaker 1: aware that Chauvin's defense attorney, in a constellation of right

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Speaker 1: wing bad faith actors, blamed Mr. Floyd's death on a

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Speaker 1: drug overdose. What you might not be aware of is

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Speaker 1: that the term excited delirium is more or less an

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Speaker 1: invented condition created mostly by a mixture of cops and

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Speaker 1: the Axon Corporation who make tasers in order to blame

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Speaker 1: mostly black men murdered by the police for their own deaths.

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Speaker 1: The whole story of this is bug fuck and it

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Speaker 1: will make you want to do things that put the

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Speaker 1: burning of the Third Precinct to shame. Um. The most

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Speaker 1: immediate precursor to excited delirium, the modern term was something

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Speaker 1: called Bell's mania, and Bell's mania was first described in

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Speaker 1: eighteen forty nine by Dr Luther beav Luther V. Bell

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Speaker 1: in a publication with the no ship real name, The

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Speaker 1: American Journal of Insanity. I mean, do the page numbers

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Speaker 1: go sequentially or like, how how weird are they getting

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Speaker 1: with it? You know? And then I guess it's a

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Speaker 1: pretty boring journal. I kind of want to put out

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Speaker 1: a journal that just cut it, that's just titled You're

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Speaker 1: not gonna believe this fucking ship just weird physics and

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Speaker 1: deep sea fish wild right, Yes, yes, And there's like

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Speaker 1: always one article about poop, just so we can keep

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Speaker 1: it on the nose enough. So Luther Bell published an

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Speaker 1: article in the American Journal of Insanity based on his

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Speaker 1: work at the psychiatric ward at the Clean Hospital in Boston.

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Speaker 1: He observed forty patients admitted with what he called fever

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Speaker 1: in delirium, and noted that many of them went from

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Speaker 1: experiencing hallucinations, agitation, and fever to death within several weeks

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Speaker 1: of admission. Now Bell was taking notes on a very

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Speaker 1: real phenomenon, or at least a series of different aminons

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Speaker 1: that kind of presented in similar ways. The most likely

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Speaker 1: cause from most of the symptoms he was observing was

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Speaker 1: basically a lack of antipsychotic medications, which didn't exist at

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Speaker 1: the time he was doing his work. When those were

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Speaker 1: developed in the nineteen fifties, Bell's mania grew markedly less

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Speaker 1: common as a diagnosis. Doctors today now recognized that most

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Speaker 1: of Bell's patients who died were likely suffering not from

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Speaker 1: any kind of mania, but from infectious or autoimmune encephalitis,

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Speaker 1: something that also became much easier to recognize and treat

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Speaker 1: in the early nineteen twenties. These were a lot of

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Speaker 1: people who are put in institutions with poor sanitary standards.

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Speaker 1: They died as a result of that, but because they

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Speaker 1: were kind of acting erratic and agitated and you know,

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Speaker 1: shrieking and stuff. He just kind of like, oh, this

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Speaker 1: is some sort of mania, right. The realities they have

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Speaker 1: fucking encephalitis in most cases, and um antipsychotic medications would

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Speaker 1: have dealt with most of the rest of the things.

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Speaker 1: But at the time, you know, Bell is not a

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Speaker 1: bad guy here, He's he's doing the best or not

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Speaker 1: to my knowledge based on what I can read, he

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Speaker 1: seems like he's doing the best he can to diagnose

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Speaker 1: the symptom and he just gets it wrong because it's

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Speaker 1: sucking eighteen fifty and no one knew anything, you know, right,

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Speaker 1: this is also people forget you know, we put um there.

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Speaker 1: There are people who have done such excellent, meaningful work

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Speaker 1: in the world of medicine, but we forget that medicine

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Speaker 1: as an institution has these deep systemic problems. Like what

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Speaker 1: was the guy's name, Samuel Weiss, the guy who got

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Speaker 1: the ship beat out of him for asking doctors to

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Speaker 1: wash their hands. Yeah, that was a huge controversy. So

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Speaker 1: I'm like, I I know, like there, I love that

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Speaker 1: you said bad faith actors, man, because there are people

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Speaker 1: who are working in good faith assiduously with the best

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Speaker 1: information they have at the time. So I feel like

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Speaker 1: what you're saying about Dr Luther Bell is that he's

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Speaker 1: not trying to be a dick, right and he not

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Speaker 1: to knowledge. Yeah, not not to what we what we

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Speaker 1: understand from the record. And uh, I would I would

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Speaker 1: ask you, you know, I know we're going somewhere with this,

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Speaker 1: but I want to think about this like one of

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Speaker 1: the big questions because I think I see where we're

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Speaker 1: going here, Robert. One of the big questions is how

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Speaker 1: would he feel about the way the successor of his

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Speaker 1: ideas being used? Right? Yeah, And I don't know enough

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Speaker 1: about Bell to tell you that, um, but it's it's

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Speaker 1: it's going to go to some unexplained, unexpected places. He certainly,

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Speaker 1: I don't think saw this coming when he was he

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Speaker 1: was doing his best to kind of diagnose what he

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Speaker 1: thought was a single syndrome. Um And kind of that

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Speaker 1: story I just told Bell diagnosed of this mania in

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Speaker 1: the eighteen fifties, and then in the nineteen fifties, because

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Speaker 1: of better medications, it goes away. That would probably be

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Speaker 1: the end of the story of Bell's mania if it

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Speaker 1: weren't for a friend of the pod cocaine. Yes, in

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Speaker 1: the eighties cocaine. In seventies, cocaine became markedly more common

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Speaker 1: as a drug of abuse. Uh and in nineteen eighty five,

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Speaker 1: in particular, Miami was rocked by a sudden spate of

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Speaker 1: deaths among black female sex workers. Thirty two women in

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Speaker 1: total died, and upon initial examination, their deaths seemed inexplicable.

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Speaker 1: The only hint medical examiners in police had was the

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Speaker 1: fact that they all had some amount of cocaine and

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Speaker 1: other drugs in their system. Charles Wetley, a forensics pathologist, decided,

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Speaker 1: based on nothing really, that a combination of cocaine use

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Speaker 1: and sexual intercourse had killed the women. Whatley decided that

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Speaker 1: with chronic cocaine use quote, the male of the species

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Speaker 1: becomes psychotic and the female of the species dies in

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Speaker 1: relation to sex, which is an incredible It's the coke

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Speaker 1: and fucking that's killing them. It makes men crazy and

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Speaker 1: it makes women die. Wow. Well, and this is nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty five, right, Bell had we have an excuse for

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Speaker 1: him getting stuff wrong. It's eighteen fifty people most of

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Speaker 1: medicine involved tax saws than Charles Whatley. There's no excuse

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Speaker 1: to be saying this ship um he wrote, quote, my

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Speaker 1: gut feeling is that this is a terminal event that

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Speaker 1: follows chronic use of crack cocaine affecting the nerve receptors

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Speaker 1: in the brain. What Lee started using the term excited

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Speaker 1: delirium to refer to this deadly cocaine fueled mania he

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Speaker 1: was pretty sure had to exist. Of course he was

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Speaker 1: fucking wrong. Better medical examiners and detectives looked into the deaths,

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Speaker 1: exhumed a number of bodies and found that the women

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Speaker 1: had all been exphyxiated by a serial killer. Excited delirium

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Speaker 1: had not caused their deaths. But Whatley was off to

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Speaker 1: the races now, and the condition he'd more or less

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Speaker 1: invented provided a perfect scapegoat for cops who were increasingly

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Speaker 1: getting flak overall the black people they murdered in custody.

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Speaker 1: So that's and and Whatley really pulls back to excited

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Speaker 1: delirium to say, like, I'm not the first guy recognizing this.

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Speaker 1: You know, there's a history of the medical uh and

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Speaker 1: it went away in the nineteen fifties, but then cocaine

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Speaker 1: brought it back act And this is you know, you

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Speaker 1: can't divorce this entirely from the War on drugs, Right,

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Speaker 1: You've got Reagan and the White House. People are starting

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Speaker 1: to flip out about the dangers of cocaine and crack.

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Speaker 1: In particular, crack is you know, more associated with the

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Speaker 1: used by by use for people who aren't white and rich,

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Speaker 1: so it gets really demonized, and Wetley provides a way

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Speaker 1: to blame people for their own deaths when in the

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Speaker 1: case like the thing that the name excited delirium comes

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Speaker 1: from a bunch of female black sex workers getting murdered

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Speaker 1: by a serial killer, and Wetley's immediate jump is like, no,

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Speaker 1: it must be their fault. You know, he'd like completely

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Speaker 1: misses what it actually happened. Yeah, yeah, it's real fucked up.

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Speaker 1: It's mind boggling to me because this is something that

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Speaker 1: is that is new information. The idea that one could

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Speaker 1: take this meta level of victim blaming, like to the extreme,

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Speaker 1: it's over nine thousand level of victim blaming and then

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Speaker 1: say uh, and then have it been picked up as

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Speaker 1: a convenient cause. I mean, you know, we've always all

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Speaker 1: of us actually on the shows that and that hang

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Speaker 1: out together and actual friends were all very well aware

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Speaker 1: of the the problems with the official narrative of the

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Speaker 1: crack cocaine epidemic. But you know, it's like the big question, uh,

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Speaker 1: the big question about arms races too, right, like who's

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Speaker 1: manufacturing the guts? Right, Who's who's growing the coca plants?

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Speaker 1: Because it's certainly not someone in like a you know,

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Speaker 1: Los Angeles. Uh. So it feels like it feels like

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Speaker 1: this is beyond incompetence. I would argue, it feels like

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Speaker 1: this guy is intentionally skipping some cognitive steps to find

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Speaker 1: this interesting. Yeah, we're we're gonna be talking about wet

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Speaker 1: Ley a bit later in the episode, so keep it.

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Speaker 1: Put a pin in that one, ben So got it.

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Speaker 1: The excited delirium diagnosis spreads like wildfire after Since there

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Speaker 1: were also an awful lot of cocaine overdoses in this period,

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Speaker 1: very few people noticed anything fishy. One group of researchers

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Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety seven, writing for the Journal of Forensic Science,

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Speaker 1: did decide to investigate the troubling rise and excited delirium deaths.

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Speaker 1: Quote from a registry of all cocaine related deaths in

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Speaker 1: Dade County, Florida, from nineteen sixty nine to nineteen ninety

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Speaker 1: fifty eight. Excited delirium deaths were compared with a hundred

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Speaker 1: and twenty five victims of accidental cocaine overdose without excited

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Speaker 1: delirium compared with controls e d d s. Excited delirium

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Speaker 1: deaths were more frequently black, male, and younger. They were

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Speaker 1: less likely to have a low body mass index, and

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Speaker 1: more likely to have died in police custody, to have

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Speaker 1: received medical treatment immediately before death, to have survived for

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Speaker 1: a longer period, to have developed hyperthermia, and to have

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Speaker 1: died in summer months. In other words, most accidental cocaine

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Speaker 1: toxicity deaths were of white people who died suddenly, generally

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Speaker 1: not near police, because they were partying and doing a

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Speaker 1: bunch of cocaine right, and they just dropped dead suddenly

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Speaker 1: because their heart blows up. Right. Meanwhile, black excited delirium

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Speaker 1: cocaine overdose deaths were nearly all black people who had

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Speaker 1: been restrained by law enforcement immediately prior to their death.

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Speaker 1: The study also noted that these excited delirium cocaine overdoses

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Speaker 1: tended to have much less cocaine in their system than

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Speaker 1: the white cocaine overdoses, so these are all getting blamed

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Speaker 1: on cocaine. But the excited delirium deaths are overwhelmingly black,

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Speaker 1: overwhelmingly involved police use of force, and they have a

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Speaker 1: lot less cocaine in their systems than the people who

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Speaker 1: are just dying of cocaine good stuff. Does it add

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Speaker 1: up right, say the quiet part out loud, Yes, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's It was pretty obvious to the to the researchers

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Speaker 1: paying attention from the beginning what was happening. But again

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Speaker 1: most people don't really catch on at this stage. Now,

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Speaker 1: if you can read between the lines just a little bit,

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Speaker 1: the picture is very clear. Cops were arresting black people

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Speaker 1: for drug possession and restraining them, Like Derek Chauvin. A

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Speaker 1: lot of these cops restrained their suspects in a way

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Speaker 1: that caused death. Then they blamed that death on cocaine

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Speaker 1: and wrote the deaths off as excited delirium cocaine overdoses.

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Speaker 1: Dtor Michael baden Of, a prominent forensic pathologist who studies

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Speaker 1: deaths in police custody and was once the chief medical

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Speaker 1: Examiner for New York City, explained to Brookings, quote, this

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Speaker 1: is the germination of excited delirium. The same people who

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Speaker 1: did these prostitution deaths now applied excited delirium to cocaine

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Speaker 1: users in Miami and people who died while being subdued

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Speaker 1: by police. By the late nineteen nineties, good doctors had

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Speaker 1: started to realize what was going on, and a series

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Speaker 1: of studies were published analyzing all these excited delirium deaths.

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Speaker 1: It became increasingly clear that the key commonality in most

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Speaker 1: of these deaths was not cocaine or any behavior on

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Speaker 1: the part of the deceased, but the fact that they

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Speaker 1: had been put in police custody and that less lethal

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Speaker 1: weapons like mace or taser's had been used on them.

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Speaker 1: One analysis and the Canadian Medical Association Journal found quote

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Speaker 1: in all twenty one cases of unexpected death associated with

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Speaker 1: excited delirium, the deaths were associated with restraint for violent

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Speaker 1: agitation and hyperactivity, with a person either in a prone

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Speaker 1: position eighteen people eighty six percent or subjected to pressure

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Speaker 1: on the neck three people fourteen percent. All those who

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Speaker 1: died had suddenly lapsed into tranquility shortly after being restrained.

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Speaker 1: The excited delirium was caused by a psychiatric disorder in

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Speaker 1: twelve people fifty seven percent, and by cocaine induced psychosis

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Speaker 1: in eight percent, thirty eight and eight people, thirty eight percent,

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Speaker 1: eighteen people, eighty six percent were in police custody when

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Speaker 1: they died. Four nineteen percent had been sprayed with mace,

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Speaker 1: and heart disease was found in another four At autopsy,

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Speaker 1: the blood level of cocaine and those whose excited delirium

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Speaker 1: was cocaine induced was similar to levels found in recreational

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Speaker 1: cocaine users and lower than levels found in people who

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Speaker 1: died from cocaine intoxication. Now, it's hard to know the

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Speaker 1: precise scope of the problem, but excited delirium deaths are

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Speaker 1: based on the evidence we have extremely common. Eleven percent

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Speaker 1: of all deaths and police custody in Maryland are attributed

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Speaker 1: to excited delirium. In the last decade, at least fifty

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Speaker 1: three people have died in custom in Florida. Some council

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Speaker 1: were like eighty five and we're blamed on what was

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Speaker 1: more or less a fake cause of death, excited delirium. Today,

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Speaker 1: law enforcement officers are routinely taught in training that excited

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Speaker 1: delirium is a condition characterized by sudden aggression and distress,

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Speaker 1: generally brought on by the use of illegal substances and

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Speaker 1: often ending in sudden death. Excited delirium is not recognized

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Speaker 1: as a thing by the American Medical Association, the American

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Speaker 1: Psychiatric Association, the World Health Organization, or the European Society

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Speaker 1: of Emergency Medicine, which represents doctors in thirty countries. It

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Speaker 1: is not listed in the diagnosis in the Diagnostic and

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Speaker 1: Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders the d s M five.

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Speaker 1: As far as I can tell, only two organizations of

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Speaker 1: physicians recognize it as a thing, the American College of

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Speaker 1: Emergency Physicians and its British counterpart. And the story of

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Speaker 1: why that is is pretty shady. But before we get

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Speaker 1: into that, you know what else is shady, Ben, the

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Speaker 1: products and services support this podcast. We are back, and

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Speaker 1: I've just promised been that that um, this is going

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Speaker 1: to get a lot worse, uh so much worse. Um

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Speaker 1: And I'm making that promise to all of you. By

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Speaker 1: the end of this again, you'll be thinking about crimes, um,

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Speaker 1: which is you know, always always the goal here at

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Speaker 1: behind the bastards, uh, make you think about crimes, theoretical

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Speaker 1: minecraft crimes. So we're talking about I mentioned earlier, basically

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Speaker 1: all the vast majority of like reputable international medical organizations

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Speaker 1: where it's like a bunch of doctors and nurses and stuff. Uh,

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Speaker 1: do not recognize excited delirium as a thing. That d

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Speaker 1: s M does not recognize it as a thing, But

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Speaker 1: the American College of Emergency Physicians in its British counterpart

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Speaker 1: do And the why of that is a very shady story.

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Speaker 1: But before we get into that really quickly, maybe not

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Speaker 1: so quickly, I want to at least analyze the supposed

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Speaker 1: features of this condition that most doctors don't believe exists.

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Speaker 1: According to the American College of Emergency Physicians, excited delirium

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Speaker 1: is characterized by quote, bizarre behavior generating phone calls to police.

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Speaker 1: So if the cops get called on you, that's a

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Speaker 1: sign you might have excited delirium. Um. Next ship, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Next is failure to respond to police presence, and continued

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Speaker 1: struggle despite restraint. The syndrome, apparently in Taos, individuals with

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Speaker 1: superhuman strength and makes them impervious to pain. If you're thinking, boy,

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Speaker 1: it seems like people are using medical jargon to justify

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Speaker 1: racism and brutality. You're right, that is very much out. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's nice but terrible. Everyone who resists has an illness

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Speaker 1: that kills them. So if they resist and we beat

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Speaker 1: them to death, it's their illness that made them resist,

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Speaker 1: the police that killed them, not us beating them to death.

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Speaker 1: That's cop logic. Oh, you know, the whole time we

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Speaker 1: were on the break, this was making me think of

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Speaker 1: you know, I can't be the only person in the

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Speaker 1: crowd today thinking this makes me think of the way,

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Speaker 1: like hysteria got described as a legit medical condition, right yeah,

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Speaker 1: but while um skipping ahead a little bit. While hysteria

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Speaker 1: was often at least treated by you know, vibrators, um,

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Speaker 1: excited delirium is treated with tasers, you also said. You

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Speaker 1: also said as stute listeners will notice you use the

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Speaker 1: phrase less lethal instead of the entirely misleading phrase non lethal. Right, No,

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Speaker 1: there is uh actually no such thing as a non

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Speaker 1: lethal weapon. Um. If it's a weapon, it can kill people.

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Speaker 1: It might be hard to kill people, but it will

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Speaker 1: kill them. Um if you if you really go at it.

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Speaker 1: We should probably lay at a few specific cases of

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Speaker 1: excited delirium deaths to explain just how often like this

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Speaker 1: diagnosis is applied. One A good example is the case

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Speaker 1: of Gregory Lloyd Edwards, a thirty eight year old U. S.

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Speaker 1: Army veteran with PTSD who was exhibited. He was agitated

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Speaker 1: and aggressive and stuff. You know. He was dealing with

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Speaker 1: some ship when he was arrested. In order to quote

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Speaker 1: unquote restrain him, police beat tasted, pepper sprayed and strapped

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Speaker 1: him into a restraint chair at the Brevard County Jail.

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Speaker 1: From an article by Florida Today. Quote when deputies found

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Speaker 1: Edwards unresponsive in his cell at the Brevord County Jail

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Speaker 1: about twenty five minutes after their confrontation with him ended,

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Speaker 1: he was strapped in a restraint chair, his hands cuffed

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Speaker 1: behind his back, with a fine mesh spithood over his

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Speaker 1: head and pepper spray still on his face. Notwithstanding his

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Speaker 1: restraint was deemed to be of secondary importance when Breford's

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Speaker 1: medical examiner, Dr Sajid Kaiser established a cause of death.

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Speaker 1: According to the autopsy report, Edwards died of excited delirium

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Speaker 1: and complications due to hyperactive and violent state with subsequent restraint.

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Speaker 1: His widow, Kathleen Edwards, was both perplexed and frustrated by

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Speaker 1: Kwaiser's found finding sitting in a cracker barrel restaurant with

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Speaker 1: her small daughter. She said she never heard of the

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Speaker 1: term before. What is that? Like? I know what delirium is,

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Speaker 1: and I know what being excited is, But what is

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Speaker 1: excited delirium? How does that kill you? That's a good question.

427
00:25:11,600 --> 00:25:14,560
Speaker 1: Eighty five people in Florida have died from excited delirium

428
00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:17,760
Speaker 1: over the last ten years. Florida Today to Day review

429
00:25:17,760 --> 00:25:20,000
Speaker 1: of those deaths, which took place from two thousand nine

430
00:25:20,040 --> 00:25:22,680
Speaker 1: to two thousand nineteen, to try and analyze just how

431
00:25:22,720 --> 00:25:25,640
Speaker 1: it was applied. They note that medical reports for deaths

432
00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:29,680
Speaker 1: and police custody are quote almost exclusively. The only places

433
00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:32,800
Speaker 1: where the term apply appears in medical reports throughout the state,

434
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:36,359
Speaker 1: so the only almost the only time the diagnosis of

435
00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:39,040
Speaker 1: excited delirium is given is when people have died in

436
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:43,320
Speaker 1: police custody. Most of these cases did involve illegal drugs,

437
00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:46,880
Speaker 1: usually cocaine or methamphetamine, but use of force by law

438
00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:51,560
Speaker 1: enforcement was just as common. Sixty excited delirium deaths in

439
00:25:51,640 --> 00:25:54,800
Speaker 1: Florida involved police use of force. In another fifteen percent

440
00:25:54,840 --> 00:25:58,280
Speaker 1: of cases, it was unclear whether or not police used force.

441
00:25:59,840 --> 00:26:02,919
Speaker 1: Of excited delirium deaths are men. Thirty six percent of

442
00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:06,720
Speaker 1: Florida's eighty five excited delirium deaths were black men. While

443
00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:10,159
Speaker 1: seventy percent of excited delirium deaths involved some sort of

444
00:26:10,280 --> 00:26:13,399
Speaker 1: sim of sim of stimulant narcotic, All but one of

445
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:16,359
Speaker 1: the deaths that did not involve drugs involved use of

446
00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:20,440
Speaker 1: force by law enforcement from Florida Today quote. One such

447
00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 1: case took place on February ninth, the two eighteen, when

448
00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:26,199
Speaker 1: twenty year old Aaron Parker was reportedly found naked, bleeding

449
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:28,520
Speaker 1: and sweating profusely, and lying in the medium of a

450
00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:31,959
Speaker 1: Tallahassee street. Police tried to handcuff Parker and admit him

451
00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:34,240
Speaker 1: under the Marchmon Act, the drug abuse equivalent of the

452
00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:38,119
Speaker 1: Baker Act. The Tallahassee Police Department said Parker began throwing punches,

453
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:40,720
Speaker 1: prompting a sergeant to deploy his taser. He was then

454
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:43,240
Speaker 1: given a sedative by e MS. Parker had to be

455
00:26:43,280 --> 00:26:46,520
Speaker 1: resuscitated en route to the hospital. He died a week later.

456
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:50,119
Speaker 1: His death is reportedly still under investigation, and police withheld

457
00:26:50,200 --> 00:26:52,240
Speaker 1: use of force information from the public for a week

458
00:26:52,280 --> 00:26:55,399
Speaker 1: following his death. The medical examiner ruled Parker's death and

459
00:26:55,520 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 1: accident due to excited delirium associated with probable drug use.

460
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:04,360
Speaker 1: Ker's toxicology turned up positive only for cannabinoids, not stimulants.

461
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:08,680
Speaker 1: So this guy gets beaten and taste by police, dies

462
00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:11,840
Speaker 1: on the way to the hospital. The medical examiner says,

463
00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:13,920
Speaker 1: it's an excited delirium, probably because of all the drugs

464
00:27:13,960 --> 00:27:15,760
Speaker 1: he was doing, and then they found out he just

465
00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:18,280
Speaker 1: had a little bit of pot in the system. Like that.

466
00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:21,119
Speaker 1: I'm quoting this because it's representative of a lot of

467
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:25,840
Speaker 1: these debts. Wow, and you know that. What's what's interesting

468
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:29,879
Speaker 1: there is, you know, the immediate question would be, is

469
00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:34,320
Speaker 1: there someone who has a cause of death listed as

470
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:40,399
Speaker 1: excited delirium without in any way touching on uh, you know,

471
00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:44,920
Speaker 1: the like law enforcement finding them and and doing these

472
00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 1: horrific things to them, Like, is there is there someone

473
00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:51,359
Speaker 1: I'm just interested. Yeah, there are some excited delirium deaths

474
00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:53,760
Speaker 1: that don't involve police use of force and do involve

475
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:56,760
Speaker 1: drugs a lot. Like some medical examiners will say, well,

476
00:27:56,760 --> 00:27:58,400
Speaker 1: it seems like it was a drug overdose or someone

477
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:01,200
Speaker 1: whose heart stopped because you know, they or on drugs,

478
00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:04,000
Speaker 1: and excited delirium is an odd thing to apply to that. Well,

479
00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:06,320
Speaker 1: we'll get into that a little bit. It is not

480
00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:10,439
Speaker 1: always diagnosed for people who die in police custody, but

481
00:28:10,480 --> 00:28:14,359
Speaker 1: it is predominantly diagnosed for people who die in police custody.

482
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:17,400
Speaker 1: More than three quarters of excited delirium deaths are ultimately

483
00:28:17,440 --> 00:28:20,920
Speaker 1: determined to be accidents. Only seven percent are declared to

484
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:24,560
Speaker 1: be homicides. This is significant because when a death is

485
00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:28,880
Speaker 1: declared a homicide, there has to be an investigation, but

486
00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:31,440
Speaker 1: it means a homicide at death. Being a homicide means

487
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:33,600
Speaker 1: that a person's death was the result of another human

488
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:36,880
Speaker 1: being's actions. This is why police like to have them

489
00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:39,480
Speaker 1: declared excited delirium, because then a death that was the

490
00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:42,280
Speaker 1: result of a person's action gets declared not that, and

491
00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:44,960
Speaker 1: there doesn't have to be an investigation. This is why

492
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 1: Minneapolis police tried to declare George Floyd's death caused by

493
00:28:48,840 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 1: a medical incident, because then it's not a homicide. Then

494
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:55,800
Speaker 1: there's no investigation. Right. That's the value of this diagnosis

495
00:28:55,840 --> 00:29:02,600
Speaker 1: to law enforcement. It's cool stuff. Yeah, having a hard

496
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:08,600
Speaker 1: time articulating just how horrific that is because you can

497
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:14,000
Speaker 1: get you tell me and I'm I'm here for it.

498
00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:16,840
Speaker 1: I'm here for it, but I'm just thinking like this

499
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:21,680
Speaker 1: is essentially at least in some cases. I think you've

500
00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:24,200
Speaker 1: I think you've made a very solid argument that this

501
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:27,880
Speaker 1: functions as a not a necessarily get out of jail card,

502
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:30,440
Speaker 1: but to stay out of jail card for law enforcement.

503
00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:32,920
Speaker 1: Would you agree with that? Yeah, And it's it's a

504
00:29:33,040 --> 00:29:36,280
Speaker 1: it's a sweep it under the rug diagnosis. It's a

505
00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:38,959
Speaker 1: we call this is this was just the result they

506
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:41,280
Speaker 1: took drugs, So number one, it's their fault. And number two,

507
00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:44,960
Speaker 1: we don't have to be investigated for how our behavior

508
00:29:45,280 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 1: may have contributed to their deaths. That's why you do it.

509
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:56,280
Speaker 1: Dr Wetley, who popularized the term excited delirium, continues to

510
00:29:56,320 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 1: be one of the most prominent voices in medicine supporting

511
00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:01,840
Speaker 1: the existence of excited delirium as a deadly syndrome. He

512
00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:04,640
Speaker 1: and other doctors like him theorized that the debt these

513
00:30:04,640 --> 00:30:08,920
Speaker 1: deaths are caused by an excess of catechola means catechola

514
00:30:08,960 --> 00:30:11,960
Speaker 1: means whatever. I'm not a doctor, a category of neurotransmitters

515
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:14,720
Speaker 1: that includes adrenaline. Again, I'm not a doctor, so I

516
00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:16,360
Speaker 1: can't weigh in on this one way or the other.

517
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 1: But other doctors have waited on this, and one of

518
00:30:18,840 --> 00:30:22,240
Speaker 1: them is Dr Michael Baden. He has issues with Dr

519
00:30:22,280 --> 00:30:26,120
Speaker 1: Wetley's reasoning quote. This is Baden. If an overproduction of

520
00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:29,920
Speaker 1: adrenaline is behind excited delirium, why hasn't excited delirium been

521
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:32,240
Speaker 1: cited as the cause of death for a police officer

522
00:30:32,400 --> 00:30:35,040
Speaker 1: or a soldier since they're also exposed to highly stressful

523
00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:39,600
Speaker 1: situations daily. Right? Why is it only people who die

524
00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 1: in police custody? Almost only people who die in police

525
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:44,960
Speaker 1: custody who get this diagnosis if it's caused by overproduction

526
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:47,640
Speaker 1: of adrenaline, Because, like I'm gonna guess, a lot of

527
00:30:47,640 --> 00:30:49,680
Speaker 1: fucking Marines would be dropped into this if it was

528
00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:52,880
Speaker 1: an overproduction of adrenaline issue. You know it's He makes

529
00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:55,920
Speaker 1: a good point. He adds, in general, I am of

530
00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 1: the strong opinion that excited delirium is a boutique kind

531
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:03,800
Speaker 1: of diagnosis created, unfortunately by many of my forensic pathology colleagues,

532
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:07,560
Speaker 1: specifically for persons dying when being restrained by law enforcement.

533
00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 1: So that's doctor again. I can't really weigh in specifically

534
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:14,640
Speaker 1: on and called Dr Whatley wrong. I'm not a doctor,

535
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:17,360
Speaker 1: but doctor Michael Bayden is a doctor, and he's weighing in.

536
00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 1: I think you're being very fair. Yeah, I mean, I

537
00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:21,880
Speaker 1: just I I try not to like delve too deeply

538
00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:23,960
Speaker 1: into medicine because I'm not a fucking doctor, which is

539
00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:25,760
Speaker 1: why I try to see what other doctors are saying,

540
00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 1: and a lot of them are frustrated by this. Now,

541
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:30,920
Speaker 1: I will say other credible physicians are somewhat more measured

542
00:31:30,960 --> 00:31:34,120
Speaker 1: in their phrasing than Dr Baden was. Dr Russell Vega,

543
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:38,080
Speaker 1: chief medical examiner for Florida's twelfth District, described excited delirium

544
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:41,160
Speaker 1: mass quote more of a behavioral state than an underlying

545
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:45,320
Speaker 1: medical diagnosis, and in general, medical examiners are statutorially tasked

546
00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 1: with and thus more focused on determining and recording the

547
00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:51,160
Speaker 1: underlying medical condition than the behavioral state at the time

548
00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:54,440
Speaker 1: of death. That is polite doctor speak for saying medical

549
00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:57,280
Speaker 1: examiners shouldn't care how someone acted before they died. They

550
00:31:57,280 --> 00:32:00,120
Speaker 1: should care about what killed them, which is about is

551
00:32:00,160 --> 00:32:03,040
Speaker 1: like restrained away as kind of questioning Dr Wetley's logic

552
00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:06,120
Speaker 1: as you're going to get. Dr Stephen J. Nelson is

553
00:32:06,120 --> 00:32:09,000
Speaker 1: the chair of the Florida Medical Examiner's Commission and the

554
00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:12,280
Speaker 1: Medical examiner for Florida's tenth district. He said that he

555
00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:16,120
Speaker 1: avoids using excited delirium in his district. Quote, it's like saying,

556
00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:19,960
Speaker 1: somebody dies from cardio respiratory arrest. Well, yeah, everybody dies

557
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:22,120
Speaker 1: because their heart and their lungs stopped working. So it's

558
00:32:22,120 --> 00:32:25,800
Speaker 1: not really helpful. So if you've been paying attention throughout

559
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:27,240
Speaker 1: all this so far, you should have a couple of

560
00:32:27,240 --> 00:32:30,840
Speaker 1: big questions, chief among them, why do some real doctors

561
00:32:30,880 --> 00:32:34,200
Speaker 1: back up excited delirium as a thing? If medical consensus

562
00:32:34,280 --> 00:32:36,360
Speaker 1: seems to agree that it does not work the way

563
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:38,480
Speaker 1: cops say it does, even if it might be a

564
00:32:38,560 --> 00:32:41,480
Speaker 1: legitimate way to describe behavior, it's not a medical diagnosis,

565
00:32:41,680 --> 00:32:45,360
Speaker 1: why do some doctors disagree with that? Well, then that's

566
00:32:45,360 --> 00:32:49,280
Speaker 1: gonna bring us two friend of the pod, the Axon Corporation,

567
00:32:49,560 --> 00:32:54,440
Speaker 1: makers of the Taser now the original taser. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,

568
00:32:54,480 --> 00:32:57,440
Speaker 1: we all know that sound. The original Taser was invented

569
00:32:57,440 --> 00:33:00,000
Speaker 1: in the mid nineteen seventies, and the first Taser corporate

570
00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:02,720
Speaker 1: ration was founded in nine It changed its name to

571
00:33:02,760 --> 00:33:05,680
Speaker 1: ax On pretty recently, used to be called the Taser Corporation.

572
00:33:05,720 --> 00:33:07,720
Speaker 1: I'm just going to call them Axon for our purposes

573
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:11,200
Speaker 1: today because it's easier. From the beginning, the major selling

574
00:33:11,240 --> 00:33:14,920
Speaker 1: point for Taser was that their weapons were less than lethal. Today,

575
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:18,880
Speaker 1: Axon's website has a whole page titled how Safe our Tasers,

576
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:21,280
Speaker 1: on which they currently claim that their weapons have saved

577
00:33:21,560 --> 00:33:24,160
Speaker 1: two hundred and forty eight thousand, nine hundred and seventy

578
00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:28,080
Speaker 1: four lives to date nineties. They say that ninety nine

579
00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:30,800
Speaker 1: point seven five percent of Taser uses result in no

580
00:33:30,960 --> 00:33:35,160
Speaker 1: serious injury. Now, given that their business is providing a

581
00:33:35,280 --> 00:33:38,840
Speaker 1: less lethal option for a force option for police, Axon

582
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:41,760
Speaker 1: stands to lose a lot of money each time somebody's

583
00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:45,360
Speaker 1: heart stops because they get tased repeatedly. So decades ago,

584
00:33:45,520 --> 00:33:47,800
Speaker 1: they decided to make sure that that would not happen.

585
00:33:48,240 --> 00:33:50,719
Speaker 1: Step one was to hire as many doctors as they

586
00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:53,200
Speaker 1: could buy, men and women who would take ax On

587
00:33:53,320 --> 00:33:56,200
Speaker 1: money to carry out studies proving the safety of tasers

588
00:33:56,240 --> 00:33:58,080
Speaker 1: and who would be willing to take to the stand

589
00:33:58,080 --> 00:34:01,080
Speaker 1: in order to defend America's favorite a extrocution tool from

590
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:04,440
Speaker 1: claims that people sometimes died when shot with it. One

591
00:34:04,480 --> 00:34:07,720
Speaker 1: of their first paid experts was Dr Wetley, the same

592
00:34:07,760 --> 00:34:10,920
Speaker 1: man who popularized excited delirium as a diagnosis back in

593
00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen eighties. That's right, he's an ax On employee.

594
00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:18,239
Speaker 1: There we go, Oh, well done. I didn't want to.

595
00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:20,319
Speaker 1: I didn't want a positive guest because they didn't want

596
00:34:20,320 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 1: to seem prejudiced or unfailed. But uh so, so it's

597
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 1: kind of like, um uh, it's kind of like a

598
00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:34,040
Speaker 1: company that makes that makes ship proof pants is saying

599
00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:38,560
Speaker 1: new studies find shipping your pants randomly is amazing on

600
00:34:38,760 --> 00:34:44,919
Speaker 1: multiple levels. Right, provides a wide variety of health benefits. Right,

601
00:34:45,520 --> 00:34:48,719
Speaker 1: that's terrible. So this is our bastard. Uh well, one

602
00:34:48,760 --> 00:34:52,759
Speaker 1: of them. There's a bunch of them. Actually, a lot

603
00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 1: of doctors are taking that axe on cash, it turns out.

604
00:34:56,080 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 1: Um now, I don't know precisely when Dr Wetley started

605
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:03,400
Speaker 1: working for as On. In two thousands seventeen, Reuters interviewed

606
00:35:03,480 --> 00:35:06,279
Speaker 1: him as part of an incredibly detailed investigation they did

607
00:35:06,280 --> 00:35:09,319
Speaker 1: into taser deaths, a really wonderful piece of work. Dr

608
00:35:09,400 --> 00:35:12,200
Speaker 1: Whatley claimed that the company had approached him quote more

609
00:35:12,239 --> 00:35:15,279
Speaker 1: than a decade ago, which conveniently could mean anything from

610
00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:18,040
Speaker 1: the early adds to the late nineties, when Taser started

611
00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:22,520
Speaker 1: taking off. We don't know exactly when now. Quote from

612
00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:26,120
Speaker 1: Reuter's Whatley said that excited delirium is a genuine condition

613
00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:28,680
Speaker 1: and that the vast majority of deaths involving taser's he

614
00:35:28,719 --> 00:35:31,439
Speaker 1: studied were caused by it. I've never seen a case

615
00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:33,719
Speaker 1: where I could say that a taser actually contributed to

616
00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:35,880
Speaker 1: the death, he said. As far as interfering with the

617
00:35:35,880 --> 00:35:38,800
Speaker 1: heart rhythm, he added, there's never been any convincing evidence

618
00:35:38,800 --> 00:35:42,719
Speaker 1: that that can actually take place. Now, one person who

619
00:35:42,719 --> 00:35:46,160
Speaker 1: disagrees was Dr Whatley is doctor Werner Spitz, one of

620
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:49,799
Speaker 1: the foremost forensic pathologists in the country. He testified at

621
00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:52,120
Speaker 1: the O. J. Simpsons civil trial and at one point

622
00:35:52,200 --> 00:35:55,360
Speaker 1: was called into review the autopsy of President John F. Kennedy.

623
00:35:55,760 --> 00:35:58,000
Speaker 1: Spitz has seen a number of cases where a taser

624
00:35:58,040 --> 00:36:00,880
Speaker 1: caused death, and when informed of doctor Least claim to

625
00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:04,279
Speaker 1: the contrary, he told Reuters quote, if you fire a

626
00:36:04,360 --> 00:36:07,520
Speaker 1: taser into the precordial area where the heart is, whether

627
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 1: the front or back, the electric current may very well

628
00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:13,399
Speaker 1: interfere with the electrical impulses that go to the heart.

629
00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:17,000
Speaker 1: But I mean, I'm sure we can trust Dr Wetley

630
00:36:17,200 --> 00:36:19,880
Speaker 1: on this. You know, he doesn't have a conflict of interest,

631
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:26,200
Speaker 1: no reliable, credible, it's good ship. All his all his

632
00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:30,000
Speaker 1: friends and family members get tasers for Christmas. You're right,

633
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:34,920
Speaker 1: because they're so safe. Yeah, uh safe. You know what

634
00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:39,280
Speaker 1: else is safe? This is a This is a shift

635
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:43,000
Speaker 1: from the first ad break the RNA next nine missile

636
00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:46,359
Speaker 1: by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon with the R nine X.

637
00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:48,719
Speaker 1: Have you ever been thinking, ben, I want to kill

638
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:51,640
Speaker 1: most of the people in that car, but not all

639
00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:54,319
Speaker 1: of the people in the other cars around them. Yeah.

640
00:36:54,360 --> 00:36:57,000
Speaker 1: There are a lot of Honda Odyssees in Atlanta, and

641
00:36:57,120 --> 00:36:59,080
Speaker 1: you know it's it's it's tough to tell when you

642
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:01,600
Speaker 1: look through the window because there could be like nine

643
00:37:01,600 --> 00:37:03,520
Speaker 1: to twelve people in there. You never know there could

644
00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:05,239
Speaker 1: be and maybe you only want to kill three to four.

645
00:37:05,480 --> 00:37:08,800
Speaker 1: That's why we have the R nine X, as Lockheed

646
00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:12,000
Speaker 1: Martin and Raytheon say, the R nine X, it'll funk

647
00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:15,440
Speaker 1: up a Honda Odyssey. Al Right, here's some other ads.

648
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:24,600
Speaker 1: We are back. Uh, we're back, and we're talking about

649
00:37:24,640 --> 00:37:27,120
Speaker 1: whether or not it's possible to be killed by a taser,

650
00:37:27,360 --> 00:37:30,759
Speaker 1: which a lot of doctors say absolutely. There's hundreds of

651
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 1: evidence of cases where that's happened in which Dr Charles Wetley,

652
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:42,600
Speaker 1: paid employee of the Axon Corporation, says, no. Never imagine

653
00:37:42,600 --> 00:37:45,719
Speaker 1: if guns were I mean, gun companies have fought hard

654
00:37:45,880 --> 00:37:48,600
Speaker 1: to be immune not just like liability for what their

655
00:37:48,600 --> 00:37:50,640
Speaker 1: products are used for, but to be immune to liability

656
00:37:50,680 --> 00:37:52,719
Speaker 1: if they make guns that like fire when they're not

657
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:55,680
Speaker 1: supposed to. Like look up tourists, you know, they there

658
00:37:55,719 --> 00:37:57,640
Speaker 1: was a case where like their safeties didn't work and

659
00:37:57,680 --> 00:38:00,359
Speaker 1: a bunch of people had their guns fire randomly into

660
00:38:00,360 --> 00:38:03,120
Speaker 1: their legs and died, and tourists wasn't liable because again

661
00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:07,880
Speaker 1: it's America. Weapons manufacturers have the inherent right to argue

662
00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:11,000
Speaker 1: that their weapons don't harm people even when they do.

663
00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:14,200
Speaker 1: And that's cool. I guess which can I just say,

664
00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:18,160
Speaker 1: you see things like this happen on a daily basis,

665
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:20,879
Speaker 1: and I don't know about you guys, but I can't

666
00:38:20,920 --> 00:38:25,000
Speaker 1: even slide on like overdue finds at the library, you

667
00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:27,719
Speaker 1: know what I mean, like Blockbuster knowing my luck will

668
00:38:27,719 --> 00:38:30,279
Speaker 1: probably come find me at some point because I never

669
00:38:30,320 --> 00:38:34,080
Speaker 1: gave back Police Academy. You know, they'll fucking taste the

670
00:38:34,080 --> 00:38:37,319
Speaker 1: ship out of you over that Police Academy DVD. At

671
00:38:37,400 --> 00:38:39,719
Speaker 1: least it's not police academy too. You know, if you

672
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:43,440
Speaker 1: die over police academy, that's okay. Dying over police academy

673
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:48,120
Speaker 1: too is a bridge too far. Yeah, yeah, no, it's

674
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:50,080
Speaker 1: it's given me a dark night of the soul more

675
00:38:50,120 --> 00:38:52,759
Speaker 1: than once, to be honest. But but you're right, like

676
00:38:52,800 --> 00:38:58,839
Speaker 1: the temerity too, especially if you're a medical professional, right

677
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:03,279
Speaker 1: you one could make the argument that, Okay, funding I

678
00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:09,000
Speaker 1: have received or my employer does not affect my professional opinion.

679
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:11,760
Speaker 1: I think it's a bullshit argument, but it's an argument

680
00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:14,960
Speaker 1: people can make. But to do that on top of

681
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:19,640
Speaker 1: this sort of layer cake of you know, pardon me,

682
00:39:20,320 --> 00:39:25,279
Speaker 1: of of actively ignoring a mountain of evidence, that just

683
00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:29,120
Speaker 1: seems like, I don't like, at what point do you

684
00:39:29,160 --> 00:39:31,759
Speaker 1: get your license revoked? You know what I mean? It

685
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:34,839
Speaker 1: seems like never, And it's like, yeah, it's it's very

686
00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:37,319
Speaker 1: shady where that's a big part of the story that

687
00:39:37,320 --> 00:39:39,680
Speaker 1: we're going to get into because Whatley is not the

688
00:39:39,719 --> 00:39:43,279
Speaker 1: only doctor who's double dipping in this way. Now. When

689
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:46,080
Speaker 1: I first started digging into this subject and was trying

690
00:39:46,120 --> 00:39:48,400
Speaker 1: to I was trying to answer the question, is excited

691
00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:52,680
Speaker 1: delirium real or is it something that the cops invented um,

692
00:39:52,719 --> 00:39:55,080
Speaker 1: and that article in Florida Today that I've quoted from

693
00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:58,400
Speaker 1: brought me to Dr Deborah Mash, who's a professor emeritus

694
00:39:58,440 --> 00:40:01,880
Speaker 1: at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine. According

695
00:40:01,880 --> 00:40:04,440
Speaker 1: to the article, she's been studying the concept of excited

696
00:40:04,480 --> 00:40:07,200
Speaker 1: delirium for decades. She is one of the most prominent

697
00:40:07,239 --> 00:40:09,920
Speaker 1: medical voices who will argue that it is a real syndrome.

698
00:40:10,239 --> 00:40:12,680
Speaker 1: I can't argue with her credentials, but from the beginning

699
00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:16,360
Speaker 1: some of her arguments sounded odd to me. Quote, people

700
00:40:16,360 --> 00:40:19,480
Speaker 1: are in a psychiatric state, and that condition is a delirium.

701
00:40:19,560 --> 00:40:22,239
Speaker 1: This delirium that people experience, which is why police get

702
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:27,319
Speaker 1: involved in the first place. So that's odd, uh that

703
00:40:27,320 --> 00:40:31,200
Speaker 1: that Like again, she's going back to that, like excited delirium.

704
00:40:31,239 --> 00:40:32,800
Speaker 1: One of the ways we recognize that is if the

705
00:40:32,840 --> 00:40:35,480
Speaker 1: cops get called on you, which seems like a weird

706
00:40:35,560 --> 00:40:39,239
Speaker 1: thing for a medical diagnosis to be. Now, Mash has

707
00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:42,040
Speaker 1: published a variety of peer reviewed articles making the case

708
00:40:42,160 --> 00:40:44,359
Speaker 1: for excited delirium is a real thing, and as far

709
00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:46,720
Speaker 1: as I can tell, I think she's the first person

710
00:40:46,760 --> 00:40:49,040
Speaker 1: who traced it to Bell's mania. It might have been Wetley.

711
00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:51,759
Speaker 1: I'm not exactly certain on that. They both I think

712
00:40:51,800 --> 00:40:55,360
Speaker 1: will make that argument. Mash has published a variety of

713
00:40:55,360 --> 00:40:57,719
Speaker 1: peer reviewed articles in which she makes the case for

714
00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:01,160
Speaker 1: excited delirium being well documented in founded in medicine and

715
00:41:01,239 --> 00:41:05,760
Speaker 1: medical history, tracing its early description to Bell's mania. Um.

716
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:08,360
Speaker 1: Florida Today asked her for her take on the Gregory

717
00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:11,399
Speaker 1: Edwards case. That's the vet with PTSD who died after

718
00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:14,960
Speaker 1: being tased and restrained and maced. She agreed that Edwards

719
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:17,600
Speaker 1: was suffering from excited delirium, but she also called his

720
00:41:17,640 --> 00:41:20,719
Speaker 1: death unnecessary, arguing that he should have been taken to

721
00:41:20,760 --> 00:41:23,680
Speaker 1: a hospital rather than being put into custody. And she

722
00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:27,200
Speaker 1: threats an interesting needle here, sort of throwing some soft

723
00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:29,560
Speaker 1: blame on law enforcement for the man's death, but she

724
00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:32,799
Speaker 1: stopped short of actually saying that anything in particular they did,

725
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:36,480
Speaker 1: or any tool that they used killed him. The feeling

726
00:41:36,560 --> 00:41:39,920
Speaker 1: you get reading her answer is that his excited delirium

727
00:41:40,040 --> 00:41:44,399
Speaker 1: killed him because he did not receive medical treatment for it. Now,

728
00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:47,200
Speaker 1: this sounds a lot more reasonable than the standard law

729
00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:50,040
Speaker 1: enforcement line he died because he was on drugs, But

730
00:41:50,120 --> 00:41:52,200
Speaker 1: it really is just a variant of the same thing.

731
00:41:52,560 --> 00:41:55,759
Speaker 1: His death was unnecessary, but he was not killed as

732
00:41:55,800 --> 00:42:04,880
Speaker 1: a direct result of police use of force. Bad faith

733
00:42:05,719 --> 00:42:09,400
Speaker 1: that argument, right, it does seem like a bad faith argument.

734
00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:12,720
Speaker 1: Would you be surprised to know that Dr Deborah Marsha's

735
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:19,200
Speaker 1: mentor is one doctor Charles Wetley, Absolutely fucking not. Yeah,

736
00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:22,600
Speaker 1: him her mentor um And he's probably the person who

737
00:42:22,640 --> 00:42:25,719
Speaker 1: recommended that the Axon Corporation hire her to be an

738
00:42:25,719 --> 00:42:35,720
Speaker 1: expert witness in more than a dozen lawsuits. Oh yeah, Yeah,

739
00:42:35,760 --> 00:42:39,800
Speaker 1: that's that good ship. That's that good good griftin ship. Yeah.

740
00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:43,640
Speaker 1: It's like these people are like the evil the taser

741
00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:46,240
Speaker 1: doctors are like the evil version of the pot doctors.

742
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:48,400
Speaker 1: Right in California, before it was legal, we used to

743
00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:51,200
Speaker 1: have all these pot doctors who were like clearly doctors

744
00:42:51,200 --> 00:42:53,879
Speaker 1: who had been disgraced or wanted to retire. It would

745
00:42:53,880 --> 00:42:57,240
Speaker 1: just be like, I'm I used to be a fucking oncologist.

746
00:42:57,360 --> 00:43:00,480
Speaker 1: I saw too many people die. Now I like drunk

747
00:43:00,520 --> 00:43:02,960
Speaker 1: in a room and tell people give people pot prescriptions.

748
00:43:03,120 --> 00:43:05,080
Speaker 1: And that was fine, Like, I have no issue with

749
00:43:05,120 --> 00:43:10,680
Speaker 1: those doctors. Actually it was amazing because anytime I wanted

750
00:43:10,680 --> 00:43:12,480
Speaker 1: because I used to smoke a ton back then, and

751
00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:15,320
Speaker 1: it was it wasn't like I'm not just getting wasted

752
00:43:15,400 --> 00:43:18,600
Speaker 1: during the day, I'm taking prescribed medicine, sir. Like you

753
00:43:18,680 --> 00:43:20,839
Speaker 1: just go down to Venice Speech and there'd be some

754
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:25,840
Speaker 1: guys in and white coats, the doctors, and yeah, my

755
00:43:25,960 --> 00:43:30,000
Speaker 1: favorite was the doctor was like horribly sunburned, long white hair,

756
00:43:30,080 --> 00:43:32,480
Speaker 1: looked like an old hippie, wearing like board shorts and

757
00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:34,799
Speaker 1: a T shirt with a lab coat over them. And

758
00:43:34,960 --> 00:43:38,080
Speaker 1: outside of his office on Venice Beach there was like

759
00:43:38,200 --> 00:43:41,440
Speaker 1: bolted to the wall of a day glow painting of

760
00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:43,480
Speaker 1: the Mona Lisa with a blunt in her hand, and

761
00:43:43,520 --> 00:43:48,840
Speaker 1: it just felt very medical and super subtle to write,

762
00:43:49,239 --> 00:43:53,959
Speaker 1: very subtle. Yeah, these taser doctors are are not more

763
00:43:54,080 --> 00:43:56,480
Speaker 1: subtle than the pot doctors. But where the While the

764
00:43:56,520 --> 00:43:59,279
Speaker 1: pot doctors are like, I'm tired of practicing medicine. I

765
00:43:59,320 --> 00:44:02,120
Speaker 1: just want to make enough money to retire telling people

766
00:44:02,120 --> 00:44:05,400
Speaker 1: they could smoke pot, these guys are like, I'm not

767
00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:08,719
Speaker 1: tired of medicine, but I would like to make money

768
00:44:08,760 --> 00:44:13,280
Speaker 1: justifying deaths due to police use of force and tasers

769
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:16,560
Speaker 1: by claiming that tasers didn't kill them, drugs did, which

770
00:44:16,600 --> 00:44:21,840
Speaker 1: is a lot worse um, so you'll see Doctor Deborah

771
00:44:21,880 --> 00:44:24,160
Speaker 1: Mash quoted a lot as a subject matter expert on

772
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:28,799
Speaker 1: excited delirium UM. That Florida Today article quoted Mash at length,

773
00:44:28,840 --> 00:44:31,840
Speaker 1: but did not note her financial relationship with ax On.

774
00:44:32,640 --> 00:44:35,280
Speaker 1: The thing that makes Dr Mash brilliant is her ability

775
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:38,520
Speaker 1: to express total sympathy for victims and seemed like she's

776
00:44:38,600 --> 00:44:43,439
Speaker 1: not defending the cops while averting all responsibility from the cops.

777
00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:46,400
Speaker 1: She told Reuters that the Edwards case was heartbreaking and

778
00:44:46,440 --> 00:44:50,360
Speaker 1: avoided the obviously chutty move of blaming the victim directly. Instead,

779
00:44:50,480 --> 00:44:54,280
Speaker 1: she blamed budgetary constraints and the health care system. Quote,

780
00:44:54,719 --> 00:44:57,799
Speaker 1: he was failed by healthcare providers, and the jails don't

781
00:44:57,800 --> 00:45:00,200
Speaker 1: have the money for the staffing that they need. They

782
00:45:00,239 --> 00:45:03,200
Speaker 1: need the nurse practitioners who are trained in psychiatry to

783
00:45:03,239 --> 00:45:08,439
Speaker 1: identify the problem. See, it's not the cops fault, it's

784
00:45:08,480 --> 00:45:10,680
Speaker 1: that it's the fact that they don't have enough money

785
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:13,000
Speaker 1: to have nurses in the jails. We're got to give

786
00:45:13,040 --> 00:45:14,960
Speaker 1: the cops more money and then these people won't be

787
00:45:15,040 --> 00:45:16,880
Speaker 1: dying because obviously the cops will spend that money on

788
00:45:16,960 --> 00:45:21,360
Speaker 1: nurses and not on more tasers. Oh god, you know,

789
00:45:21,440 --> 00:45:26,080
Speaker 1: I'm golf clapping at the matrix. Dodge sound goes in.

790
00:45:26,600 --> 00:45:29,800
Speaker 1: It's impressive, Like she's not a dumb person, which is

791
00:45:29,840 --> 00:45:33,759
Speaker 1: why ax On Paser Mash is so valuable to ax

792
00:45:33,840 --> 00:45:36,200
Speaker 1: On that she's become their point woman in Florida whenever

793
00:45:36,239 --> 00:45:39,040
Speaker 1: someone gets killed by a taser. But Axon is a

794
00:45:39,040 --> 00:45:41,640
Speaker 1: big company and they employ a number of other medical

795
00:45:41,719 --> 00:45:45,239
Speaker 1: experts in different states. And in part two of this episode, Ben,

796
00:45:45,520 --> 00:45:49,160
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the saga of Dr Jeffrey Hoe.

797
00:45:49,640 --> 00:45:53,640
Speaker 1: But that's gonna have to come Thursday, um, because because

798
00:45:53,680 --> 00:45:57,239
Speaker 1: we are done for the day, given a give a

799
00:45:57,320 --> 00:46:02,160
Speaker 1: nice little bit of background. Who so, Ben, you got

800
00:46:02,200 --> 00:46:06,480
Speaker 1: some plugs for us? How you doing you get some plugs? Oh? Yeah?

801
00:46:06,520 --> 00:46:11,160
Speaker 1: First off, I'd like to thank everybody at Axon. Uh

802
00:46:11,200 --> 00:46:14,640
Speaker 1: they're they're paying me for a period on this show

803
00:46:14,680 --> 00:46:19,279
Speaker 1: and parts now. Uh yeah yeah. So if if you

804
00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:22,239
Speaker 1: like Behind the Bastards, we uh, I hope you check

805
00:46:22,239 --> 00:46:24,920
Speaker 1: out stuff they don't want you to know. It's a

806
00:46:25,080 --> 00:46:29,080
Speaker 1: show I do with a critical thinking applied to corruption

807
00:46:29,160 --> 00:46:32,239
Speaker 1: and conspiracy theories. You can also check out the show

808
00:46:32,480 --> 00:46:36,440
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History, which is exactly what it sounds like we

809
00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:39,000
Speaker 1: were not super freaking creative with the name. To be

810
00:46:39,080 --> 00:46:41,840
Speaker 1: honest with you, Uh, and you can also find uh

811
00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:44,839
Speaker 1: find me on Twitter or Instagram where I am at

812
00:46:44,880 --> 00:46:50,160
Speaker 1: ben Bolan. This is amazingly depressing. Robert. Yeah, it's it's

813
00:46:50,160 --> 00:46:53,319
Speaker 1: pretty much a bummer. Yes, and I hope everybody makes

814
00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:57,760
Speaker 1: it safely to Thursday. Yes, avoid the cops, don't get tased,

815
00:46:58,239 --> 00:47:03,360
Speaker 1: and if you get excited to don't be delirious. I guess,

816
00:47:03,400 --> 00:47:08,239
Speaker 1: don't be delirious. Eat Derito's. Oh boy, we even't had

817
00:47:08,239 --> 00:47:11,040
Speaker 1: a Doritos plug in a minute, we'll catch Hill on Thursday.

818
00:47:11,080 --> 00:47:13,839
Speaker 1: We'll talk about Dr Jeffrey Ho. We'll we'll throw out

819
00:47:13,880 --> 00:47:17,120
Speaker 1: some ads from our new sponsor, Linco Industries, maker of

820
00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:19,799
Speaker 1: the Bearcat G three, which is of course, the most

821
00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:25,200
Speaker 1: popular wheeled armored response vehicle by American law enforcement squat teams. Lynco.

822
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:28,040
Speaker 1: If you are a small police department who needs a

823
00:47:28,120 --> 00:47:32,120
Speaker 1: vehicle that can take an explosion for no real reason,

824
00:47:32,960 --> 00:47:40,760
Speaker 1: your best bet is Linco. That's the episode. Uh, good times,

825
00:47:45,520 --> 00:47:45,560
Speaker 1: m