Orlando Sentinel

17 die after sedatives injected during police action

Three fatal incidents happened in Orlando, investigat­ion finds

- By Ryan J. Foley and Carla K. Johnson

At least 17 people died in Florida over a decade following a physical encounter with police during which medical personnel also injected them with a powerful sedative, an investigat­ion led by The Associated Press has found.

Three of the fatal incidents occurred in Orlando. Others were reported across the state, from Tallahasse­e to Tampa to West Palm Beach. Two incidents involved drugs administer­ed by Miami-Dade Fire Rescue paramedics.

The deaths were among more than 1,000 that AP’s investigat­ion documented across the United States of people who died after officers used, not their guns, but physical force or weapons such as Tasers that — like sedatives — are not meant to kill. Medical officials said police force caused or contribute­d to about half of all deaths.

It was impossible for the AP to determine the role injections may have played in many of the 94 deaths involving sedation that reporters found nationally during the investigat­ion’s 2012-2021 timeframe. Few of those deaths were attributed to the sedation and authoritie­s rarely investigat­ed whether injections were appropriat­e, focusing more often on the use of force by police and the other drugs in people’s systems.

The idea behind the injections is to calm people who are combative, often due to drugs or a psychotic episode, so they can be transporte­d to the hospital. Supporters say sedatives enable rapid treatment while protecting front-line responders from violence. Critics argue that the medication­s, given without consent, can be too risky to be administer­ed during police encounters.

Florida was among the states with the most sedation cases, according to the investigat­ion, which the AP did in collaborat­ion with FRONTLINE (PBS) and the Howard Centers for Investigat­ive Journalism.

The AP investigat­ion found that medical officials in Florida played a key role in promoting the use of sedatives to try to prevent violent police incidents. And, in 2006, a grand jury that investigat­ed the cases of people who had died after they were shocked with Tasers in Miami-Dade County recommende­d squirting the sedative midazolam, better known by its brand name Versed, up their noses.

Miami-Dade paramedics soon adopted this strategy, despite concerns that the drug could cause respirator­y depression. Other emergency medical services agencies in Florida later became early adopters of the sedative ketamine.

The Florida cases involved several sedatives, including ketamine, midazolam and an antipsycho­tic medication called ziprasidon­e.

AP’s investigat­ion shows that the risks of sedation during behavioral emergencie­s go beyond any specific drug, said Eric Jaeger, an emergency medical services educator in New Hampshire who has studied the issue and advocates for additional safety measures and training.

“Now that we have better informatio­n, we know that it can present a significan­t danger regardless of the sedative agent used,” he said.

The drugs were often given as treatments for “excited delirium,” an agitated condition linked to drug use or mental illness that medical groups have disavowed in recent years. The controvers­ial syndrome traces its roots to Miami in the 1980s.

This story is part of an ongoing investigat­ion led by The Associated Press in collaborat­ion with the Howard Center for Investigat­ive Journalism programs and FRONTLINE (PBS). The investigat­ion includes the Lethal Restraint interactiv­e story, database and the documentar­y, “Documentin­g Police Use Of Force,” premiering April 30 on PBS.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States