Local News Kens 5 reports that last night a man who was ranting to himself “died in police custody” after SAPD attempted to arrest him.
According to witness accounts the man was simply yelling late at night, and was severely beaten by police. The police admit the use of force, but claim the suspect was simply hit until he had “a bloody nose.” The Medical Examiner has determined the cause of death as “excited delirium syndrome” from cocaine use and a heart condition.
Interestingly, the former Chief Medical Examiner for Bexar County, the county in which San Antonio resides, has written extensively on excited delirium. Dr. Di Mao is also the Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology. Those facts will make it a little more difficult to get independent investigation into these events, and to verify that the death was the result of police restraining the individual rather than beating him to death.
This is not the only police-related death in San Antonio recently. On March 23 a man was killed during a domestic dispute call. His death was also attributed to excited delirium. Granted, two incidents don’t make a pattern, and excited delirium only made up about five percent of homicides in 2005 (the last year for which data is available from the ME). It’s good news that the Medical Examiner classifies these deaths as homicide, but there have been (as far as I can find, please feel free to correct me) exactly zero prosecutions of officers for these deaths. Furthermore, the 2003 Use of Force Report leaves much to be desired. Reading the summary of the author’s concerns, SAPD’s response is typically along the lines of “well, you shouldn’t worry about that, because we say so.” That leads me to conclude that the SAPD and Bexar County more generally are not particularly interested in investigating, understanding, or correcting problems with SAPD’s use of force or the people killed while in custody.
