... Dr. Joseph Noone, an expert on the clinical aspects of violent behaviour, said excited delirium is a term favoured by law enforcement officials and coroners even though it is not accepted as a medical or psychiatric diagnosis. ...
Noone, manager of psychiatric intensive care at the Riverview Hospital in Coquitlam, B.C., produced a report for the inquiry that states use of the term excited delirium when describing cause of death can result in the deceased being labeled as the culprit.
"The attractiveness of the term may relate to some of its proponents having ... the subjective perception that conducted energy weapon use and physical, mechanical restraint used by law enforcement officers deserves to be excluded or absolved as contributing in any way to an in-custody death," the report says.
"The deceased is identified as the culprit and must have had the condition of excited delirium."
Noone testified the term implies those in the throes of excited delirium "had something wrong with them" to begin with. "And if they died, they were going to die anyway..."
"Excited delirium (proponents) say that people walk around in this state where they could drop at any moment. In my experience, they are not dropping at any moment."
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