DENVER — Colorado will become only the second state in the country to prohibit use of the controversial term “excited delirium” on such official documents as police and autopsy reports after Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill into law Thursday.
The new law, inspired by a lengthy 9NEWS/KFF Health News investigation, follows legislation initially passed in California last year.
Our investigation tied more than 225 deaths across the U.S. to use of the term. Almost all followed prone – or facedown – restraint, use of a stun gun, or both.
Critics of “excited delirium” have long said the term is used to explain away deaths that occur following law enforcement restraint.
Rep. Judy Amabile, D-Boulder, a primary sponsor of the Colorado legislation, called the term “bullsh-t” after watching the initial 9NEWS investigation.
“It’s junk. It’s junk science. We shouldn’t be relying on that,” she said.
Late last year, Colorado’s Peace Officers Standards and Training Board (POST) agreed to drop a requirement that officers must be trained on “excited delirium” after 9NEWS found the term in state police training manuals.
Excited delirium is rooted in a theory that a body can become so agitated and a mind so delirious that the heart simply stops. For decades, coroners have listed it as a cause of death to explain why people suddenly died in police custody.
When Alex Gutierrez died in 2017 under a pile of officers in Adams County, the Adams County Coroner concluded the restraint didn’t kill Gutierrez but excited delirium did.
That same year, the same office concluded Paul Egli also died from excited delirium after officers restrained him facedown during an arrest.
Critics of excited delirium have long pointed out that many of the same symptoms of it are found in people who think they might die under the weight of arresting officers. In addition, the U.S. Department of Justice, in 1995, warned law enforcement officers to turn a facedown and handcuffed suspect over immediately due to risk of positional asphyxia.
Utah, Hawaii and New York are currently considering similar bans on the use of excited delirium.
> Video below: Undetermined: How a 9NEWS investigation led to the elimination of a controversial term:
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