Sudden death after arrest may be new syndrome

reply to post by sir_chancealot

In general I would have to agree with you. Even if it physical trauma that is not detected. Like those kids who were dropping dead years back, by playing that idiotic game where they would cause a "head-rush" through sudden physical exertion and heavy breathing and then pinch the neck arteries off so that they would pass out.

Actually a rather effective way to kill someone I would think, without leaving any real physical signs.

But on the other hand, perfectly healthy young men have been known to experience such deep mental trauma that they become catatonic, their hair literally turns white, they suffer a heart attack, etc. Therefore, I say it is just as possible, though extremely rare, that someone could die as a result of mental stress as well.


[edit on 9/3/0808 by jackinthebox]

reply to post by Unmask The Deception


And I think YOU have hit the nail on the head. Star for you.

I honestly don't see any reason simply being arrested would cause enough mental anguish, adrenaline, or any other naturally occuring physical action to make an otherwise healthy young male die. If that was the case, we'd have guys dropping over dead on roller coasters, you'd have cases of otherwise healthy youths keeling over when a friend pops out of a garbage can and scares the bejesus out of them, or you'd see reports of them dying during their first sexual experience (I defy anybody to say that the biggest adrenaline surge you've ever felt wasn't the first time you realized your girlfriend wasn't gonna say "no" that night. We're talking Dr Gonzo in Fear & Loathing right there.)

There's just got to be a better explanation here. Either it's something tazer or other electronic subduction device, they screwed up in their drug history/toxicology reports for these guys, or we're seeing something very clear cut that is a physiological difference between the law abiding brain & physical responses & the criminal brain & physical responses. Maybe the criminal brain actually operates more akin to a wild animal's brain and that's why they made that comparison in the article? I don't know the answer to that, but if it turns out to be a link the question becomes, can criminals even be rehabillitated or only domesticated?

reply to post by burdman30ott6

Maybe the criminal brain actually operates more akin to a wild animal's brain and that's why they made that comparison in the article?

Live free or die. Maybe these "criminals" are really the last bastion of freedom then. I'm not trying to be snarky with you here. I mean it. Maybe the criminals are the ones who have failed to be successfully "programmed" because they are closer to their natural state as a freedom loving human, while the rest of us carry on as drones.

After all, the majority of criminals, in American prisons anyway, are high-school dropouts. They couldn't be programmed.

Quote by an ER nurse from St. John Hospital. "he got the shocky thing out", said by a very large black man that was going schizoid.
I would like to see some kind of tricked out lasso device that could subdue individuals without electrical shock. Going peacefully also does not hurt. Quote my me to an amed jerk security guard as I was wheeling a pt to CPI and making weird noises to pointlessly set him off.
(very big dude) if this guy get's out of this w/c you are on your own. (cleveland pysche institute) I see it as some kind of Barny factor with one rusty bullet. And the bigger they are...the more they they want to take them down hard.



[edit on 9/3/2008 by jpm1602]

[edit on 9/3/2008 by jpm1602]

reply to post by jackinthebox


I know what you are getting at, but if acting in a civilized manner & following basic laws of the land are "programming" then we've been "programming" people since our species first developed societal groups thousands of years ago. I'm not talking about the whole police state crap, either. If you break the law, you should face consequences for it.

This is the second time in a week that I've said this, but anarchy isn't freedom. Our basic laws are the only thing that secures our freedom. The Constitution is basically a set of laws, the "mother law" if you will. All of our laws are (or at least should be, though we know that isn't really the case, unfortunately) born from our Constitution, which is the very same document & contract that guarantees our freedom.

You may also be onto something with the high school dropout idea, but I think I view that differently than you do. Again, education & ingraining of societal norms & standards isn't what I would call programming anymore than teaching a child to talk or write is programming. If you remove any belief in God or a creator from the equation of man, the only two things that really separate homo sapiens from animals are a moral conscience (which arguably is a learned trait) and the abillity to derive complex cause & effect outcomes of our actions. It seems that most criminals understand the cause, but live their lives in a state of denial as to accepting the effect of their actions (ie: being arrested). If I believed in evolution, I'd actually turn this argument around and say that criminal behavior and criminal mindsets are an indication of de-volution and say that it becomes even more imperative that we as a species weed out that mindset and eradicate it from our gene pool to prevent it from bringing the whole of humanity down with it over the next several thousand years.

reply to post by burdman30ott6


Sure just like sudden death after being choked is also a new syndrome, and sudden death after having your skull crack open by a baton is also a new syndrome, and sudden death after being run over is a new syndrome.

So... Young men who are probably criminals are akin to wild animals? This strikes me as a not so subtle jab at dehumanizing individuals who are arrested.

"We know that when a wild animal is captured, sometimes the animal dies suddenly," he said. "Probably when these young males are captured it is very stressful and their level of catecholamines goes very high and that can finish their life by ventricular fibrillation (cardiac arrest)." ... "We all know stress is bad for you and this may be stress in the extreme," he said.

source

When these young males are captured??? This strikes me as biased pseudo-science and the article has a spin on it that leads one to assume the arrested individuals were criminals.

I wonder if the study began with the intent of proving 59 men (and one non-man _ they never said it was a woman) were feral. What's next, people gnawing off an arm to escape from handcuffs?

I do not know whether to laugh or cry?

If this indeed is a case, that there is a possibility that extreme stress can cause a sudden death, why in hell we do capture people in first place? This 'shocking news' should result in end of all imprisonment, but instead it will 'explain' that nature causes the death, not the officers that capture you

Ooh, I do not burst in anger

I wonder whether this is an convinient excuse to cell deaths or a real reason to stop imprisonment. Maybe we will move on with 'medical imprisonment'. I do not know; the brave new world!

-v

Originally posted by burdman30ott6
Heck, they might even be able to get sponsorship, Mutual of Omaha presents COPS narrated by Marlon Perkins.

If that ever happens,

I am going to dust off the wallet and spring for a TIVO.

you know, whenever I hear of an "unexplained death while in police custody," the first thing I think of is, "oh, there must have been something wrong with the person that died, of course!"

urns out I was right, and now I can quote science the next time someone tries to bring up that tired myth of police brutality. Don't be mad at the police just because your loved one died instantly and unexplainably (and most likely, without being on camera, or documented or witnessed by anyone other than police).

I bet that is one of the factors too, people dying without explanation, because there were no witnesses around. That's a common way to die as well in police custody.

The human body is just so mysterious, isn't it?

I have been a Police Officer for a long time (14yrs) and in that time arrested MANY, MANY people (Probably over a thousand due to where I work). I personally have never had anyone die of anything, even after fighting, being pepper sprayed, baton strikes, etc. But I have seen it happen to other co-workers, and it is a very traumatizing experience for a Police Officer.

People often have pre-existing medical conditions (asthma, high blood pressure, heart problems, seizures, etc...) combined with the use of alcohol, marijuana, coc aine, heroin, ecstacy, etc etc etc, and mixtures of all of the above, and then throw in some adrenaline, and some running and fighting, and its a bad combination. A vast majority of people arrested are usually not in there right state of mind to begin with due to drugs, alcohol, and mental issues. It is the nature of the beast.

I know this only my third reply to a thread but its my longest yet. Maybe I will start a thread pretty soon, Maybe........................

Originally posted by Busymind
So... Young men who are probably criminals are akin to wild animals? This strikes me as a not so subtle jab at dehumanizing individuals who are arrested.

"We know that when a wild animal is captured, sometimes the animal dies suddenly," he said. "Probably when these young males are captured it is very stressful and their level of catecholamines goes very high and that can finish their life by ventricular fibrillation (cardiac arrest)." ... "We all know stress is bad for you and this may be stress in the extreme," he said.

source

When these young males are captured??? This strikes me as biased pseudo-science and the article has a spin on it that leads one to assume the arrested individuals were criminals.

I wonder if the study began with the intent of proving 59 men (and one non-man _ they never said it was a woman) were feral. What's next, people gnawing off an arm to escape from handcuffs?

[edit on 3-9-2008 by RAUDAA]

Disclaimer: This post is relevant because it is discussing the topic. I have purposefully left out anything that could be incriminating to me or anyone else, such as names, locations, specific actions and items, etc.

I guess I can tell my story, considering court is a week away.

I'm not going into the criminality of the case, specifically the illegality of the things the police did to me.

One day I had finished dinner and went on my back porch to have a smoke. My 17yr old sister and a female friend were out there talking. The female friend had some paraphenalia in her hand, and she asked me if i knew where to get the goods. I said no I didnt, and then the topic changed to her having run away from the last 2 weeks of a court ordered drug rehab center, where you leave on weekends.

So as I am chastising this girl on her stupidity, an undercover cop walks alongside my wooden fence, on the neighbor's side, and she immediately stands up, drops her paraphenalia onto my thigh, and runs into the back sliding door, which was open. By the way, we were on a roofed-in, screened-in dwelling of a porch with a screen door and lock. So I thought it was my neighbor at first, and put the thing she dropped on me in my pocket so he wouldnt see anything illegal right? dumb move.

The plain clothes cop asks to speak with me and my sister, then shows his badge over the fence to us. So then we walk over. We have a lovely conversation, hes on one side of the fence, itching to get to us, and were on the other side of the fence, answering questions. I let him know i didnt know the girl, my sister admitted she did, and the cop said she had some detention order out for her .. the girl that is. A couple minutes into our convo I ask, "Can I go inside and get my mother?" because her husband was out of town, I'm 25, but my mother had no idea anything was even happening. Truth be told, i was going to trash the item she dropped on me too. But the officer denied me entry into my own home before any reasonable cause for criminality on my part, heck he wasnt even there for me, and I had no priors. The lawyer told me indeed I couldve disobeyed, turned and walked inside anyway, but since he had a gun and was a cop, I did the prudent thing.

So then the other cops starts to show up. The 1st cop has us walk up to the fence gate, the cops opened it, and instead of saying "im gonna pat you down for weapons now", he simply says, "turn and face the house and put your hands behind you head" and began frisking me without warning. He stops halfway, asks if i have any DRUGS, I said no! he said "If youre lying im going to be really angry" aka, youre gonna goto jail if i catch youl lying. So I pause, then say, "there a .. *smoking utensil* in my pocket, but its empty". He pulls it out and then cuffs me and tells me im arrested for possession.

He puts me on my driveway, by now the rest of the cops are showing up. Theres about 8 or 9 of them. 4 to 6 surround me at all times. They kept insulting me because I happened to be looking VERY bummy that day. The first insult was, "hey, you look like freddy kreuger!" because of my sweater. The second insult was, "hey, we'd better check the freezer for body parts, this kid might be on some Jeffrey Dahmer ^%*$". The next was a threat, which was "I'm not taking im in my car, I dont want fleas, if I have to take him im putting him in the trunk", you know, so the cop wouldnt get fleas from me while taking me to the station.

So they sit there and talk smack, most never even entered my home to find the girl, they literally showed up, insulted me, then left? It was clear they wanted me to talk back. By now, most of the neighborhood is outside, families are watching from their doorsteps with binoclaurs, quite embarassing. Neighbors are watching, ones I talk to on a regular basis and am friendly with.

2 hours after the cop first walked by my backyard, they finally find the girl after bringing a motion K-9 into the house. The cops who were surrounding me and making fun of me also at this point said, "how much you wanna bet the dog is going to kill smokey when he finds him?"(my cat who got loose in the house in the midst of this mayhem). they were talking about killing my cat. So finally they rush the girl out my front door and into a cop car. She was hiding under a bed in my neice's bedroom. Then they write me a summons and let me go, as if i was a hostage, as if they couldnt find the girl they were gonna take ME away instead.

This was in May, and my court is in a week .. i talked to the lawyer, he said i should go non-guilty plea.. which I am .. and I'm bringing my sister who saw all of it as a witness, as well as my mother. I am going to have that detective's arse.. or at the least, I'm going to walk out there without any charges (dismssed/not guilty).

So YES, it can happen to ANYONE at ANYTIME for seemingly ANY reason. One minute I am eating some breadsticks and then enjoying a cigarette, the next im in handcuffs with a charge. I've remained positive though, and I've been thinking positive outcomes.. I really want justice.

For an entire week after the incident i couldnt eat or sleep at all, and felt all weird .. like panic attacks would just come on and off throughout the day. PTSD symptoms? id think so ..

Wish me luck in my fight against these agents of evil..

[edit on 9/3/2008 by runetang]

Good grief, man! That's horrible. I know you feel violated by their demeaning and abusive actions. You deserve justice. I'm just telling you right now that you can forget about seeing any justice. Be satisfied with getting the case dismissed or acquitted or found not guilty. It takes a BIG bribe to the judge (and probably your lawyer too) to get even a cursory investigation into the wrongdoing of cops. They're always right and you're always wrong. Your word against theirs. You lose.

Having had a very similar experience recently, I can tell you that I now have a criminal record (found not guilty but still) for something that was not a crime (hit someone who was trying to push their way into my house after being told to leave). The D.A. was shown the laws/statutes regarding assault and battery (in case he didn't graduate first in his class) and he still insisted on prosecuting. The cop got totally away with his stupidity and illegal actions as did the person who tried to shove their way into my home.

Cops show up and intimidate, harass, threaten, provoke, shove, demand, belittle, patronize, openly violate your rights. There are no consequences for them.

A simple way to solve the "mystery" of sudden death in healthy male arrests would be to have the jail nurse (they're available at the jails) to draw a post mortem catecholamine level and SEE if that's what really killed them. If it's not drugs plus stress level a drug screen will rule it out.
I don't know if getting tazed raises your catecholamine level or not. I'd have to check that out.

I think we're rapidly nearing a time when we are going to have to get comfortable with the idea that, contrary to the way some of us were raised, cops are NOT your friend and have no intention of helping you.

Best of luck in court. Just be thankful you can walk out alive; it helps keep the seething rage and resentment down to a legal level.

Thanks for the kind words.

I know I am not going to get JUSTICE .. when I say justice, I mean not guilty or dismissed. I know what might happen if im guilty, which would be a PITA, but you are right, I'd walk out alive.

I just have a solid case ive been putting together for months, going over each detail in my head, double checking things with my sister and mother. btw shes an adult now so the minor bit wont take any credibility away from her testimony.

Most public defenders are in cahoots with the prosecution. This public defender sat down with me for TWO HOURS and we went over everything, he had me draw a diagram of who was where and when etc. He told me straight up he has issues with the search performed on me as well as the seizure of me (denial of entry into my home) before any notion of criminality was present. The search itself was illegal, he didnt inform what he was doing it for, my sister saw this too! I walked out first so she'd catch any wrong doings .. I knew I was screwed, but even then I played it as smart as possible. Hopefully Ill get out of this thing.

I just want the Judge to act like the whole thing is ridiculous, to act like the cops performed their duties in the totally wrong way, and of course.. a dismissal or a non guilty. I could plead guilty, get 1st offender status, pay a fine, get 30 days suspended, and lose my license for 6 months, but id rather not. lol.

I am sick of treating victims of police abuse, I remove on average, 3 sets of taser prongs every few months... for the past four goddamn years. Not to mention the cases of hemorrhaging I encounter when "the force" brings in one of their victims to be treated before 'processing"

I would like to note that police officers are placing a major strain on the health care system be abusing so many of their charges. I am obligated to treat their victims upon arrival, giving them priority over patients already waiting.... It breaks my heart.

It breaks my heart when I am called to testify in Police abuse case that I was involved in, and I do it more and more often as of late. It has gotten to the point where I give my interns permission to stop working and act as a witness whenever the "force' brings in another lump of battered and broken human life. I have face harassment for this. Police harassment

I have heard variatons of this thrice:

"We have concluded that the officer(s) reacted accordingly to the perceived threat posed by the deceased. Furthermore, although Mr Doe has been found to be a person other than that identified by the arrest warrant/not been charged with any crime and we feel that it would be unjust to punish our Dedicated Law enforcement Officials for following standard operating procedure in response to the perceived threat posed by Mr. Doe."

I have heard this "excuse" to cover up three D.O.A at my hospital.
It is a common one and extremely frightening as there is no oversight, and documentation is always minimal/biased in these internally-conducted investigations.

The point is that Justice is absent in the majority of these incidents... not cases, incidents. It is as though "Law Enforcers" are held to a much lower Standard of justice than the plebeians who are subjects to their varied interpretations of the law.

That said...

I have confirmed and documented the time of death in two of these cases ( or should I say 'incidents?') and witnessed confirmation on the other. Both cases were innocent victims of "The Force." No officers were punished in any of the incidents. Investigations were internally done as per usual.

God, help us all.


[edit on 3-9-2008 by TruthTellist]

This does make blow-darts sound like a good idea, haha. There must be a drug that paralyzes you but keeps you conscious, because:

WE ALL TRUST THE POLICEMAN! hehe.

It's like they are cornering us from all angles until we end up with a few controlled choices to choose from.

Oh, wait. That's called life. Nevermind. I know you liked that if you are a nutter. It's all coming from outside, aimed right at YOU, haha. Arrogance.

I have not had an encounter of any sort with any police officer in over 12 years. I wonder why that is, with all the rampant police brutality, tazoring, and drug planting going on?

Someone else mentioned that criminals have not been programmed by society or some such garbage. I think what you are really getting at is that most common criminals who get caught are selfish idiots, outcasts of society living within society, who have no teamwork ability (i.e organized crime) and just build up a sense of "If I did it once, I can do it again!" until they get caught.

That's when they scream police brutality. It's when the man who stole your wifes purse, the man who stole your car, the man who kidnapped your child, the man who shoots his neighbors dog, the man who robs the liqueur store, the man who murdered, the man who burnt down the building, it's when the man screams police brutality, because he got caught and it's the quickest justification, the quickest defense, and the quickest red herring that the selfish lowlife could come up with.

reply to post by burdman30ott6

No, this should be ruled as suicide by cop. Sudden Death is ludacris for being tasered to death by a cop.

Originally posted by burdman30ott6
This is the second time in a week that I've said this, but anarchy isn't freedom. Our basic laws are the only thing that secures our freedom. The Constitution is basically a set of laws, the "mother law" if you will. All of our laws are (or at least should be, though we know that isn't really the case, unfortunately) born from our Constitution, which is the very same document & contract that guarantees our freedom.

Actually, the only real Laws are derived from the Constitution...But the huge body of Regulations, Codes, most Statutes & so forth are derived to have jurisdiction to regulate government-sponsored corporations & government employees. All of those laws are wrongfully being applied to that average citizen as well. By Constitutional Law, the only real crimes are when someone violates the equal Rights of others...Everything else is merely a "violation" of the numerous codes/regulations/etc. that are only meant to have a limited jurisdiction that does not apply to most people.

So, when someone gets pulled over by a cop, but has not been disturbing the peace, causing injury to people or causing damage to property & the cop in question has not observed any such crime or have reasonable suspicion that the person pulled over was conducting any kind of commercial activity, then the cop should never have stopped him in the first place...Yet, when even a peaceful, law-abiding citizen gets pulled out of the car & tasered, then handcuffed & hauled to jail, you've got to expect some serious adrenalin-flow from that!

reply to post by runetang


If you do get dismissal or not-guilty, then you could press charges against the cops & their supervisors if the cops were actually acting under orders that way. You can take them into an Article 3 (Common Law) Court & nail them for Rights violations. As long as your (& your witness') testimonies & evidence are sound, you'll see them fired, fined & jailed...And maybe even get monetary restitution. Even if you're found guilty, you can still levy counter-suit in an Article 3 Court because they did violate your Rights.

And that's the LAW that even (& especially) government officers are under Oath of Office to obey.

If you let just let it go without trying to see the LAW upheld against these jerks, then you'll have to live with the thought, "I just let them go free to do the same thing to my neighbors, my friends, my children some day in the future."

[edit on 3-9-2008 by MidnightDStroyer]