The way Sheldon Haleck’s parents see it, the 38-year-old’s only crime was jaywalking. But that March night in 2015, after Honolulu police found him behaving erratically, they pepper-sprayed him, shocked him with a Taser, and restrained him. Haleck became unresponsive and was taken to a hospital. Before his parents could get from their home in Utah to Hawaii, the former Hawaii Air National Guardsman was taken off life support.
“Nobody’s supposed to die from something like this,” said Haleck’s father, William.
An initial autopsy ruled Haleck’s death a homicide and his family filed a civil lawsuit in federal court against the three officers who tried to remove him from the street. The case should have been “one of the easiest wrongful death cases” to win, said Eric Seitz, an attorney who represented Haleck’s family.
But the officers’ attorneys seized on a largely discredited, four-decade-old diagnostic theory called “excited delirium,” which has been increasingly used over the past 15 years as a legal defense to explain how a person experiencing severe agitation can die suddenly through no fault of the police. “The entire use of that particular theory, I think, is what convinced the jury,” Seitz said.
I think this says it all:
“You don’t find that people get ‘excited delirium’ if they haven’t also been restrained.”
Getting restrained or getting 50 bajillion volts up your ass are just symptoms of excited delirium. The cause is being someone the cops feel the need to restrain or shock mercilessly. It’s all very scientific and medical.
ACAB
My opinion is that Excited Delirium was invented specifically to protect cops and axon from liability. Podcast episode on the topic here:
Part 1: https://player.fm/series/behind-the-bastards/part-one-excited-delirium-how-cops-invented-a-disease
Part 2: https://player.fm/series/behind-the-bastards/part-two-excited-delirium-how-cops-invented-a-diseaseIt says part I, but IIRC there never was a part two. If I’m wrong I’ll edit this comment to add the second link.
Edited in second link…
There was, just replace the “one” with “two” in the url and it’s there.
Oh thank you, not sure what I was thinking. I will edit the comment. There was one that they never seemed to return for part 2 of but apparently this wasn’t it. 🙂
“The victim was shot 15 times by officers.” Police - “Excited delirium”
“The victim’s windpipe was crushed while in police custody.” Police - “Excited delirium”
“We have video evidence of the police gang beating a victim to death.” Police - “Excited delirium”
they pepper-sprayed him, shocked him with a Taser, and restrained him. Haleck became unresponsive and was taken to a hospital.
The article doesn’t actually say why that caused his death though. It’s something that plenty of people have survived, and unlike the George Floyd case for example, we don’t know exactly how that killed him.
