The San Francisco-based Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police department has announced it will no longer use the term "excited delirium" to describe civilians, citing the expression's racist overtones.
In a Thursday press release, BART explained that "excited delirium" has been removed from the policing policy manual, and that all employees are not allowed to cite the term in written reports.
The Physicians for Human Rights group, which supports BART's policy change, says that "excited delirium" dates back four decades ago, when law enforcement officials would categorize a person or persons in an "extreme state of agitation or delirium."
And in the majority of cases chronicled since then, police personnel used that term when identifying black or brown people in "instances of mental illness or substance abuse."
For its report on the matter — which involved a thorough breakdown of the term's history by analyzing medical literature, news archives, and witness transcripts — PHR asserts that of the 166 reported deaths caused by "excited delirium" between 2010 and 2020, black people accounted for 43.3% and black and Latinos grouped together made up at least 56%.
Joanna Naples-Mitchell, PHR U.S. research adviser and co-author of the report, says that "'excited delirium' was dangerous and destructive from its inception in the 1980s. It has no place in modern medicine or law enforcement."
What's more, PHR reasons that "excited delirium" has been characterized as "scientifically meaningless," and an insufficient explanation for many deaths that occurred, while individuals were in police custody and/or restraint.
According to Naples-Mitchell, BART's policy decision represents an important first step in cleaning up slang terms with law enforcement groups.
She said also hopes that San Francisco will spur other law enforcement agencies throughout the country to follow suit with the manual and culture changes.
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