
Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny - seigando
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/ketamine-injected-arrests-draws-scrutiny-72542386
======
tehwebguy
Police should never be permitted to direct medical professionals to do
_anything_ to a person in their custody unless it is to save their life.
Medical professionals should be hyper-trained on how to tell police “hell no”
and to report their requests to an independent agency for investigation.

There are other types of scenarios where out of control cops bully doctors and
nurses into doing illegal things, two that I have read about:

\- forcing a _suspect_ to be subject to anal cavity search by a doctor at a
hospital after a traffic stop

\- forcing hospital staff to run blood tests on an awake, non-consenting
_suspect_

Everyone who has ever dealt with the medical world for a personal or family
problem understands that there are few “sure things” and that something that
worked miraculously for someone’s problem might not work for yours, even if
they _seem_ like the same problem. Allowing police a position to direct
medical care is utterly outrageous and irresponsible.

That said, what was done to Elijah McCain is one of the sickest, most
unacceptably fucked up nightmare scenarios I’ve ever heard of. The initial
interaction was a result of racist police who then had their victim murdered
because they never saw him as a person, just another potential criminal.

~~~
ashtonkem
The cops involved went back to where they killed Elijah McCain and posed for a
group photo, reportedly re-enacting his death.

This is the behavior I’d expect from a serial killer.

Edit: they then distributed or showed this photo to the rest of the precinct.
We know because a whistleblower notified the media. To my eye, this means that
they expected the rest of the precinct to approve of this behavior, which is
extremely alarming.

~~~
puranjay
> The cops involved went back to where they killed Elijah McCain and posed for
> a group photo, reportedly re-enacting his death

What compels someone to do that?

~~~
timmytokyo
Nothing compels them. It is who they are. And they are not alone in being like
this.

The better question is, why are so many people in positions of authority like
this?

~~~
non-entity
I believe the positions naturally draws people who are bullies. Not that all
of them are, but the power over, and respect from the general population is
probably very attractive to people who get a kick out of being asshole. Also,
while I can't confirm the prevalence, there's a ton of anecdotes you here
about shady hiring practices. There's the now popular story about a department
refusing to hire people who had too high an IQ, and a friend told me how a
department in a large city was attempting to recruit his cousin, despite him
being diagnosed bipolar.

~~~
tribby
> Also, while I can't confirm the prevalence, there's a ton of anecdotes you
> here about shady hiring practices. There's the now popular story about a
> department refusing to hire people who had too high an IQ

this is not just anecdotal, and has even been tested in court[0].

0\. [https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-
cops/st...](https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-
cops/story?id=95836)

------
GhostVII
Pretty much everywhere in the world, paramedics are allowed to inject
sedatives when treating a patient. Ketamine is used in many places (the US,
UK, Canada, Australia, Austria) by paramedics, because it is very safe
relative to other sedatives. So the main concern should whether or not police
are ordering EMS to administer it when it is not actually required (police do
not administer it themselves), since I don't think administering it after an
arrest should be an issue if it is actually required.

The article doesn't really give much evidence that this actually happens very
frequently. The main piece of evidence is this:

 _In Minneapolis, a report conducted by the Office of Police Conduct Review
found eight of those cases between 2016 and 2018, ranging from officers
requesting paramedics use the drug to emergency medical workers asking
officers for their opinions on sedating someone._

8 cases across three years in one city, where some of those cases were just
paramedics asking for a second opinion, does not seem to indicate a very
widespread issue across the US, especially when the city being investigated is
know to have a bad police department.

~~~
quadrifoliate
_8 cases across three years in one city, where some of those cases were just
paramedics asking for a second opinion, does not seem to indicate a very
widespread issue across the US, especially when the city being investigated is
know to have a bad police department._

First of all, it's a big jump from "the article only mentions 8 cases across
the US" to "there were only 8 cases across the US". The case of Elijah
McClain, for instance, is in Denver.

And the issue seems to be one of cruel and unusual punishment. At least in the
US, people expect the police to use and carry guns. They don't expect them to
order paramedics to inject you with weird sedatives when you're under
restraint, and _especially not to make broadly reasonable decisions while
doing so_.

Look at the McClain case, he was 140 pounds with _six_ officers restraining
him, and they needed to inject ketamine? I wouldn't blame the paramedics for
miscalculating the weight, they probably thought this was some enormous
muscular man that six police officers couldn't hold down.

~~~
Stupulous
I agree that this is something that should never happen at all, but you're
hyperbolizing the parent's statement. They didn't say there are only 8 cases
in the US, they said it's uncommon.

Taking Minneapolis as an average (parent believes they are worse than
average), it happens to .00063% of the population there per year or 1890
Americans per year. I'm having trouble finding the arrest rate in Minneapolis,
which would help get to a more accurate estimate.

~~~
luckydata
It shouldn’t happen at all. The amount of people ok with “a little dystopian
policing” is disturbing to me.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
What do you feel should happen, then, in the rare cases where medical
personnel need to treat someone who's uncontrollably violent? Police on their
own can be (and are) trained to just physically restrain the guy indefinitely,
but paramedics can't treat someone if they're thrashing around.

(I agree it'd be dystopian if police were themselves carrying around
sedatives, but that's not happening here.)

------
dj_mc_merlin
> He got 500 milligrams because they thought he weighed 220 pounds, but he was
> only 140 pounds and should have received 315 milligrams.

315 milligrams is still.. a lot. Especially injected into the bloodstream (I
presume?) all at one time. Enough to really wrangle your marbles even if
you're used to that kind of stuff.

edit: To expand, that's about the dosage most people would get delusions of
some sort, but not be 100% immobilized. That is a recipe for disaster around
angry cops.

edit2: It's bio-availability is actually twice as high intramuscularilly than
insufflated.. well you wouldn't be fighting the cops but dear god I would not
want to experience that.

~~~
dirtnugget
I was wondering how one could be so bad at estimating weight.

But yes, it’s a lot.

~~~
chrisseaton
How do you estimate the weight of a person?

I know how much I weigh, but I don't know how much anyone else weighs. I guess
some other people don't even weigh themselves so don't even know how much they
weigh.

How do you estimate it?

~~~
JshWright
> How do you estimate the weight of a person?

Practice. In theory if you're doing this a lot, you should be able do a decent
job of estimating +/\- 10%, which is more than accurate enough.

There are certainly other complications (some medications are dosed on "ideal
body weight" (ignoring subcutaneous fat), etc...)

~~~
mauvehaus
I'll second this. Climbers tend to get at least half-way decent estimating the
weight of other climbers because it's pretty relevant if you're lead belaying
somebody.

In fairness, we're usually estimating the weight of people of fairly fit
builds, but with some practice estimating people of other builds, I agree that
you'd get within 10%.

------
axaxs
Why are we injecting people during arrests, which by definition are not yet
guilty people? Even if nobody had died, this is absurd.

~~~
mortehu
If you are resisting arrest, you may still be presumed innocent of the
original crime. However you're almost certainly guilty of resisting lawful
arrest, which is usually a misdemeanor.

There's no exemption that allows innocent people to resist lawful arrest.

This is not to say that injection sounds like a great solution for everyday
arrests.

~~~
tmp538394722
Elijah McClain did not resist arrest.

> I can’t breathe. I have my ID right here. My name is Elijah McClain. That’s
> my house. I was just going home. I’m an introvert. I’m just different.
> That’s all. I’m so sorry. I have no gun. I don’t do that stuff. I don’t do
> any fighting. Why are you attacking me? I don’t even kill flies! I don’t eat
> meat! But I don’t judge people, I don’t judge people who do eat meat.
> Forgive me. All I was trying to do was become better. I will do it. I will
> do anything. Sacrifice my identity, I’ll do it. You all are phenomenal. You
> are beautiful and I love you. Try to forgive me. I’m a mood Gemini. I’m
> sorry. I’m so sorry. Ow, that really hurt. You are all very strong. Teamwork
> makes the dream work. Oh, I’m sorry I wasn’t trying to do that. I just can’t
> breathe correctly.

[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/elijah-mcclains-last-
words...](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/elijah-mcclains-last-words/)

~~~
mortehu
The source you're citing doesn't even address the assertion you're making, so
that's a bit misleading to post. Looking for a source for your claim I found
this, which adds some detail: [https://youtu.be/lfzJzAm-
OV0?t=63](https://youtu.be/lfzJzAm-OV0?t=63)

------
xkcd-sucks
Setting aside the fact that this kind of thing happens at all: How is
_ketamine_ the drug of choice?! Although it has a very high active dose:fatal
dose (alluded to in other comments), accepted practice for "chemical
restraint" is Thorazine+Valium (or equivalent); ketamine is basically never
used for behavioral "sedation" by any medical professional.

~~~
dcolkitt
I would guess the problem is those already intoxicated on opiates, or even
alcohol, as many arrestees are.

Adding a bento, like valium, to that mix is extremely dangerous because of the
synergistic effect on respiratory depression.

~~~
GordonS
If you're intoxicated on opioids, you are not going to be violently resisting
arrest in the first place.

~~~
pbsds
Not guaranteed

~~~
GordonS
No, it's not guaranteed, it would depend on how intoxicated you were.

For the purposes of this discussion, I thought it was safe to assume we were
talking about doses that could actually alter your behaviour; high doses of
opioids do not make exactly for agresssive behaviour, while lower doses are
unlikely to have an impact either way.

------
Kapura
It's completely insane that, in America, police are allowed to direct
paramedics to inject a person with _anything_. Anesthesiologists go through
how many years of schooling and training? And even then, nobody is injecting
kids with shit on the street.

I was first confused when I learned about the McClain story; I had known
Ketamine to be a recreational drug, and i had never heard of cops injecting
something into a person they were arresting before. Since I have become better
educated, I am much more concerned about staying in America long-term. This is
not how normal law enforcement should be operating.

~~~
JshWright
The cops didn't "legally" direct the injection. The don't have the authority
to do that. In my opinion (as a paramedic), that makes the compliance of the
medics with the cops request even more disgusting.

Sedation (even involuntary sedation) is an important tool for EMS (outside the
context of law enforcement). It was used totally inappropriately here, and
everyone involved should be facing criminal charges.

------
ladberg
I dislocated my ankle rock climbing a few years ago and had to be taken to the
hospital. After a few doses of morphine had zero noticeable impact on my pain,
they gave me ketamine so I couldn't feel the pain of the reduction (aka
pulling my foot out and moving it back into place).

The ketamine experience was far worse than my fall and any subsequent pain I
experienced, and I would gladly take the pain of the reduction over the
ketamine any day. It basically felt like I was dying and there was nothing I
could do to stop it. Think of the hypnosis scene from "Get Out" where you can
feel your consciousness slipping away but you're not asleep either. I could
hear everything happening around me but couldn't move a muscle or feel
anything. My perception of time went out the window and it felt like I was in
an empty void for an eternity when it was only a few minutes.

I thought I couldn't talk because I couldn't feel my mouth or move any other
muscles, but realized I was actually speaking my thoughts after I heard a
friend in the room responded to something I thought in my mind.

Overall, 0/10 would not do it again and the thought that police use it to
pacify someone during an arrest is sickening.

~~~
elevenoh
Damn. This has me wonder: had you ever done a psychedelic prior to this?

I had ketamine during wakeful surgery.

Loved it. Grateful it was available.

But I had prev. experience w/ psychedelics & had learned/practiced how to: let
go, place attention on what's positive & cease to have expectations.

~~~
Trasmatta
I imagine there's also got to be a difference between getting it for a planned
surgery that you can prepare for, vs having it thrust on you suddenly during a
traumatic and painful experience. Kind of hard to let go in that situation.

~~~
zwirbl
And several doses of morphine usually have at least some effect on the
body/mind

~~~
enimodas
Some people are immune, or almost immune:
[https://partner.sciencenorway.no/forskningno-norway-
ntnu/gen...](https://partner.sciencenorway.no/forskningno-norway-ntnu/genetic-
defect-makes-some-nearly-immune-to-morphine/1436463)

------
coronadisaster
Tony Timpa died because of this and the two cops compressing his lungs by
standing on his back. And the cops suffered no consequences.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X4PUwrq8tA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X4PUwrq8tA)
(NSFW, maybe... but very troubling either way)

------
igneo676
It's worth reading up on Ketamine and its use medically before coming to
conclusions based on this article. Notably:

1\. EMTs are generally under the oversight of a head doctor and aren't
supposed to take actions outside of what they're directed to do there. Even if
instructed by a LEO

2\. Ketamine is a relatively safe drug used for a variety of purposes. While
it may calm down someone experiencing stress, it can also stabilize patients
en-route to the hospital

While this situation may be a miscarriage of justice,we needn't throw the baby
out with the bathwater.

Source: [https://youtu.be/Dj4eBa7z03U](https://youtu.be/Dj4eBa7z03U)

Also, the source here is a professional EMT and worth checking out for more
points and more information. Prep Medic is awesome :-)

~~~
bluntfang
what do you think about rubber bullets and other "less than lethal" weapons
that kill people sometimes?

------
profikid
Alcohol and ketamine is a known bad bad combination. 500mg is a damn lot of
ketamine and morally there is no difference than drugging someone against
their will by non medical people for no medical purpose.

~~~
burfog
Cops also use pepper spray. It's against someone's will, by non-cooks, for no
culinary purpose.

Cops also use electric stun guns. It's against someone's will, by non-
electricians, for no electronic purpose.

Mind proposing an acceptable method of restraint? Go ahead, and see people
tear it apart as a human rights violation.

It's much like the hopeless situation in bad schools, where all possible
methods of discipline have been banned. Things are a mess if we deny the need
to impose proper behavior by force.

~~~
dividedbyzero
And cops use bullets, too. Soldiers use even better bullets, and these are a
super effective method of disciplining people with great longterm success in
reducing repeat offenders.

But the cost on the detainee (who is to be presumed innocent, who may be in
distress themself, who may have a psychotic episode due to some unknown cross-
reaction with medication or the like, who may be deeply scared) is much, much,
much higher, which is why this sort of thing almost never happens where I live
(not the US, obviously).

I feel there are good reasons to assume that force-injecting someone with a
megadose of Ketamine without their knowing what they're getting, understanding
what they're getting into, competent assistance during what follows, in a
profoundly bad state of mind, likely in deep fear, under heavy stress, while
being restrained (otherwise, how would you inject?), with no knowlegde of
their medical history or current condition, administered by laypeople, who
would be completely useless in case of complications – I believe that isn't
quite the same as tasing someone, or using pepper spray. While it's not
visible in the way beating injuries are, that sort of thing has big potential
to really deeply traumatize and mentally scar people for a long time.

Cops here do not have such powers and no one has tried to give them such
powers, so far; I hope it stays that way. If someone has to be sedated, a
doctor and an ambulance have to be summoned, and the then-patient has to be
brought directly to a clinic that can take care of them; all in a medical
setting from that point, not primarily an arrest (though, of course, depending
on the situation, they may not be allowed to just leave once they're lucid
again). This is only ever to be done in case of people in a psychotic episode
that cannot be calmed otherwise or the like, it's not something to put into
annoying detainees to make them shut up and be easier to handle. Any emergency
doctor willing to inject such drugs without proper medical indication would
take on big personal risks.

And, finally:

> Things are a mess if we deny the need to impose proper behavior by force.

Things are a mess as well if the tools to do so are passed out without checks
and safety mechanisms that are appropriate to their effects. Letting cops
shoot people at will while there are other, less severe options, that's
awfully bad. And letting them drug people into submission while there are
other, less severe options, that too is really bad.

~~~
throwawayWSQA
1\. "Soldiers use even better bullets"

Almost universally not true. The Geneva convention prohibits many types of
bullets that are allowed for civilian use. Hollow points, for example. And
there are good reasons why they're allowed for civilians and not war.

2\. It's not fair to give us a sanctimonious lecture about how great your
country's police procedures are without stating your country. Put up, or drop
the lecture.

I mean, imagine the chutzpah if you're German!

~~~
dividedbyzero
I believe soldiers have bullets with a lot more kinetic energy behind them
than bullets fired by ordinary police guns; that said, I'm not a gun person,
so maybe a police small arms shot is more effective against people than one
fired by an assault rifle.

Besides, the policy I described is what (AFAIK) most of Europe implements at
the moment (might be all of Europe even), including Germany. I don't quite see
why stating that requires chutzpah.

That wasn't intended as a sanctimonious lecture at all, but since there
already is a lot of "nothing less drastic could ever work" in the comments, I
thought I'd give an example of another policy that works well. I'm well aware
there is no police force or security apparatus without fault, they all get
some things wrong (and some are outright atrocious, like in Belarus
currently), not trying to make it sound like some EU police service is
perfect. I don't know where the US police falls on that spectrum, though
reading US news makes it seem like they do have some serious issues currently.
This particular policy doesn't exactly help, either.

~~~
throwawayWSQA
As an aside, about bullets.

Sure, the military has access to more powerful rounds. Aircraft cannons, for
example. But they don't typically load the soldier's rifles with rounds more
powerful than what a civilian can buy.

\- Soldiers' bullets really don't have more kinetic energy than civilian ones.
For one, a civilian can always hand load, and get whatever K.E. they want
(until they blow up their gun's chamber). Also, civilians can buy military
rounds. Either surplus or whatever.

Smaller bullets means soldiers can carry more ammo. Not as important in the
trenches of Europe, but crucial in the jungle colonial wars, I mean freedom
wars, since WW2.

\- Also, the military only wants a bullet powerful enough make it through any
reasonable personal armor. The idea is that a bullet that isn't powerful
enough to exit the body will cause more damage by tumbling inside and/or be
more difficult to remove -> it's a way around the Geneva conventions that
mandates rounds hold themselves together

\- Third hunters, by law, have to use a bullet with a certain minimum K.E. The
.30-06, for example, was initially used as a military round, but is today a
popular deer hunting round. It has been replaced in the military by the much
smaller, weaker, round used in the M-16.

The civilian .30-06 is considerably more powerful round than the AK-47's,
whose round is considered too powerful for a modern rifle.

\- Check out the perfectly legal, if expensive, .50 BMG.

------
rvnx
Sounds like the worst idea ever. Hope these practices will stay in the US
only.

~~~
GhostVII
Also happens in Canada ([https://communityedition.ca/paramedics-in-wr-will-
soon-admin...](https://communityedition.ca/paramedics-in-wr-will-soon-
administer-ketamine-and-fentanyl/)), they administer it for pretty much the
same reason as in the US. And Australia.

~~~
sesuximo
At least they say that ketamine must be approved by a physician first. Also a
bit weird that I can’t find any other articles saying this. Maybe I am
searching the wrong thing

------
hnlurker
Set aside the ethics, legality, and saneness of doping an arrestee for a
moment. Anyone know if this impacts the arrested person's 5th amendment
rights?

Once you administer a mind altering drug against that person's will, any and
all statements made by that person ought to be out of bounds for using against
them at trial.

~~~
EamonnMR
Or suppose they start acting out after they're injected, that probably
shouldn't be considered resisting arrest/assault/etc.

------
nottorp
This is happening in China right?

~~~
mattacular
USA

~~~
AsyncAwait
I presume OP was being sarcastic.

------
throwaway189262
Drugging your suspects makes sense. It's hard to justify injuring someone
before they're proven guilty. Traditional methods like tasers and pepper spray
tend to leave evidence thats too obvious to the courts.

------
dirtnugget
What worries me most about this is that ketamine on its own is psychoactive to
a degree where it can cause hallucinations. I believe it is usually given in
order to minimize pain, alongside a real sedative like midazolam before
narcosis. By itself, it is really more fuzzy than sedating.

Ever seen someone come out of narcosis? They talk a lot of stupid things.

~~~
hh3k0
That makes me wonder, could they use a confession by someone they pumped full
of ketamine an hour prior?

~~~
dirtnugget
Yes. I did not want to claim this but it was my first thought.

------
Yc4win
To use a powerful animal tranquilizer on a human being just to make some cops'
job "easier" is about the most abhorrent, sickly thing I have heard in years.
I don't want to read any more of this.

To think of all the complications in a person's body from experiencing a drug
that puts your conscience in a literally black hole (K-hole) is just sick.
It's wrong.

~~~
fareesh
Policemen do one of the toughest jobs in society, especially in places where
crime is high. Society owes them a great debt for enforcing the law because
there are some hard criminals out there who would run amok if a weak and
ineffective police force were the norm.

Armchair criticism of the police with zero consideration for their point of
view is not helpful to anyone, most of all victims of crimes.

~~~
rbanffy
They do, and this is precisely why we must prosecute the bad policemen with
extreme rigor. We allow them to use lethal force against our fellow people on
the condition they do so only as a last resort and in order to protect
society.

We should not forget that condition.

~~~
fareesh
Definitely but the conversation is about the use of ketamine, not prosecution
of bad policemen, which everyone universally condemns.

------
ezoe
Wait... The police injected a ketamin? Does he have a medical license? Did
they informed the patient... I mean suspect and got a consent? This is a whole
new level of dystopia. How could this be legal?

~~~
honksillet
No. The paramedics gave it. The article is (I think intentionally) misleading.

------
iamericfletcher
Answer me this...if an EMT is able to administer ketamine via injection to an
"out of control" "suspect" at a "crime scene", lethal dose or not, why on
earth couldn't the police officers, who are armed, protected, and highly
skilled in restraining individuals, subdue the subject with handcuffs and or
leg restraints? Perhaps some pepper spray, or a net gun that renders them to
the ground unable to freely move about?

------
aazaa
> Police stopped Elijah McClain on the street in suburban Denver last year
> after deeming the young Black man suspicious. He was thrown into a
> chokehold, threatened with a dog and stun gun, then subjected to another law
> enforcement tool before he died: a drug called ketamine.

From the very beginning this story makes no sense. Suspicious is not a crime.

An earlier story makes things seem even worse:

> While McClain was making his trip to the store, someone had called 911 to
> report a suspicious person. Referring to McClain, the caller described him
> wearing a mask said he looked "sketchy" but added that "he might be a good
> person or a bad person." When asked, the caller told the operator that there
> were no weapons and that no one was in danger. The operator advised him that
> officers were on their way to check it out.

[https://abcnews.go.com/US/happened-elijah-mcclain-
protests-b...](https://abcnews.go.com/US/happened-elijah-mcclain-protests-
bring-attention-death/story?id=71523476)

Wearing a ski mask in public during the summer, although odd, is not a crime,
either.

~~~
gwright
> Wearing a ski mask in public during the summer, although odd, is not a
> crime, either.

I don't know much at all about the McClain case, but your statement seems to
have a flawed assumption that a crime is required before police can
legitimately get involved. Policing doesn't only occur _after_ a crime is
committed. A big part of policing is about deterrence: being visible, talking
with people in the community, investigating suspicious activity, double-
checking that nothing is wrong, etc.

~~~
aazaa
From the story I linked:

> When officers Nathan Woodyard, Jason Rosenblatt and Randy Roedema stopped
> Elijah McClain on his way home, one telling him that he was "being
> suspicious," according to police body camera video. McClain responded, "I
> have a right to go where I am going."

> The officers immediately grabbed McClain, who repeatedly told them to let
> him go.

This has nothing to do with being visible, talking with the community,
investigating suspicious activity, or double-checking that nothing is wrong.

~~~
gwright
I wasn't responding to the specifics of that case. I was responding to the
implied assertion that a crime is required before police interaction is
justified, which is wrong. I tried to make that clear but apparently I wasn't
clear enough.

Using that flawed assumption to argue that the police did something wrong in
the McClain case is just noise. It distracts from understanding the facts of
the matter.

------
JRKrause
Tangentially related, ketamine was what they dosed the kids stuck in the cave
with prior to dragging them out last year.

~~~
dj_gitmo
Fascinating. The end of the CNN article about this is incredible:

> Richard Harris, the Australian anesthesiologist, was one of only two cave-
> diving anesthesiologists in the world. "I didn't think it would work at
> all," Harris told National Geographic. "I expected the first two kids to
> drown and then we'd have to do something different. I put their odds of
> survival at zero."

[https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/04/health/thailand-boys-cave-
ket...](https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/04/health/thailand-boys-cave-ketamine-
intl/index.html)

------
fortran77
In most of these police death stories, there's at least a _tiny bit_ of a
rationale for the police behavior.

In the case of Elijah McClain there's absolutely nothing I've seen or read in
reliable news sources that indicates the police had any reason to be forceful
with him or even to arrest him. It is simply outrageous.

------
purpleidea
Holy smokes. This shouldn't happen. Ketamine is also an amnesiac, which means
this could be used to erase the memory of your violent arrest and abuse by
police.

------
jungletime
I've seen a bouncer inject something into a guy thrown out of a bar in
Seattle, many years back. Not sure if its used by bouncers too.

------
honksillet
The article is misleading. It's framed as if police officers are giving
Ketamine when in fact paramedics (medical personnel) are.

------
mcguire
What happened to the paramedics in these cases? The overdoses described seem
like serious malpractice.

------
Fizzadar
The saddest part about cases like this is that they in no way surprise me
anymore.

------
andi999
So can stuff you say after administering ketamin used in court against you?

------
bobowzki
I'm an anesthesiologist.

This is insane.

~~~
throwawayWSQA
what and why? Specifically, what and why is insane and how is being an
anesthesiologist relevant?

Note, I don't think police should inject anyone with a substance (personally,
I'd rather get shot with a bullet than involuntarily shot with an anesthetic),
but how is being an anesthesiologist relevant?

The question: "should cops direct paramedic to administer K shots" is an
ethics, or a religious, question. Not a medical one. Certainly relevant
medical questions can inform the debate; questions such as "how to determine
safe and effective dosage of an anesthetic in field situations" "What does the
person experience when involuntarily subjected to this drug?".

A very important medical question can be: "How lethal is this technique?" So
that the technique's lethality can be properly classified for street use.

Subjecting the person to mortal danger is not anesthesiology. It's ethics,
law, and religion.

~~~
thethethethe
> how is being an anesthesiologist relevant?

Uhhhh anesthesiologists are experts in administratering sedatives to humans
safely. The connection here seems pretty obvious to me...

~~~
throwawayWSQA
If you re-read my comment, you'll see that "administrating sedatives to humans
safely" is specifically what I consider irrelevant.

~~~
thethethethe
You comment is pendatic and assumed that OP is commenting specifically on the
ethics of this practice. OP could just be commenting on the safety of the
practice, where their expertise is highly relavent.

------
rootsudo
Wow, he went out in a k-hole.

Interesting and scary experience.

------
alex_young
Primum non nocere

------
EVdotIO
Disclaimer: There is so much that can go wrong administering drugs without
somebody's medical background (like just getting the weight right in this
case), random variables (say ate grapefruit beforehand), or just sheer dumb
misfortune. Then there is the dystopian nature of yet another layer to diffuse
responsibility. This is tragic, and I hope doesn't set precedent.

All that out of the way. Why is this on here? This seems to be just run of
political muckracking to reinforce the narrative of "we live in an oppressive
police state". Granted, I think society can do much better. This is ABC news,
and I can say with a high level of confidence, we are very likely not getting
the full picture here. I'm not one to normal point out guidelines, buts here
we go:

 _What to Submit On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting.
That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a
sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one 's intellectual
curiosity.

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters,
or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-
topic._

This uptick in political content is really not doing this community a service.

~~~
mateus1
Policemen without any medical training are injecting and murdering people with
drugs.

This is a disturbing (and new) phenomenon. At least for someone outside the
US.

~~~
GhostVII
That is false, police are not injecting people with Ketamine. As the article
says, paramedics are.

~~~
JohnBooty
This is technically true and misses the point. Police are ordering paramedics
to inject it.

(edit: to be clear, I am saying that yes, ordering somebody else to do it is
morally equivalent to doing it yourself... if it's wrong to do it yourself,
it's just as wrong to order somebody else to do it)

Pointing out that the police aren't injecting it themselves is like pointing
out that [insert name of murderous dictator here] didn't actually kill anybody
with their own hands.

~~~
GhostVII
There is a huge difference between police injecting it and police ordering
trained paramedics to inject it. The comment I was responding to was implying
that it was dangerous for police to administer Ketamine because they are not
trained, and I was saying that is not an issue since they are not the ones
administering it.

I don't think police should be ordering EMS to administer Ketamine, but even
if they are that is far different from doing it themselves.

~~~
vertex-four
The decision of whether or not to administer any drug should always be in the
hands of someone who knows what they’re doing, and if that decision is not
made by the person receiving the drug it should be made by somebody
sufficiently detached from the situation so that they can make a good clinical
decision as to how to _medically treat the person for a condition they are
suffering from_. A cop who has someone in a chokehold is not sufficiently
detached from the situation.

You cannot say “give them ketamine” and just leave the dose up to the
paramedic and call it safe.

------
notassigned
I don't think it's helpful to assume the police were racist.

~~~
john_moscow
I've googled up the bodycam videos of the incident [0]. I think, the police
started acting the way they did, because the suspect didn't stop when the
police clearly asked him to do so, and pushed one of the officers when they
grabbed him.

It would be fair to call it racism, if there was another instance of a white
suspect acting the same way, and getting treated differently.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5NcyePEOJ8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5NcyePEOJ8)

~~~
tmp538394722
Elijah was wearing headphones. Since you’ve seen the video, how long from the
moment the police are out of their cars before they put their hands on Elijah?

Would you put your hands on someone Who showed no physical resistance in that
amount of time?

The Police escalate quickly, and then, since the situation has escalated, feel
justified in their response, which killed Elijah. They killed Elijah.

~~~
john_moscow
Well, how many people wearing masks (pre-pandemic) would be trying to avoid
getting identified while committing a robbery? How many people pushing the
officer away would be trying to attack them next? Does police have a way of
knowing in advance, whether this exact mask-wearing arrest-resisting
individual is actually a threat?

I don't think it is entirely fair to put 100% of the blame on the police. A
much healthier solution would be to try de-escalating general tensions between
the police and the population.

~~~
wonderwonder
"I don't think it is entirely fair to put 100% of the blame on the police. A
much healthier solution would be to try de-escalating general tensions between
the police and the population." Right, its not the fault of the armed people
with godlike power to kill, arrest and detain to their hearts content based on
nothing but a feeling or bias. Its the fault of the people being harassed and
killed for not properly genuflecting before the the ones killing them. I am
sure your user name is meant to be in jest but I am having a hard time
thinking you are not just a human bot in a call center that is bad at their
job.

~~~
john_moscow
Well, the day-to-day job of these armed people is to deal with other violent,
and often armed people, before they go out on the general public.

Besides, there are quite a few cities that have considerably limited the
police power by now. Minneapolis, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Portland for
example. The safety of regular law-abiding people has considerably dropped.
Murders are up, gun sales are up, almost every type of violent crime is up.

If you don't like police, go ahead, move to one of these cities. Or at least,
search for some videos from them on DuckDuckGo.

I find it very disheartening and hypocritical to hear anti-police rhetoric
from people living in 7-figure-property neighborhoods, completely shielded
from the problems that the police is supposed to solve.

And no, I am not a human bot in a call center, I happen to be a Canadian that
is actually satisfied with the way RCMP works here. And I don't understand why
our southern neighbors would rather shoot themselves in their feet and have
their cities burnt, than try to copy some techniques that do make police more
efficient up here.

~~~
wonderwonder
I am sure you are satisfied, your police force kills civilians at a rate 1/3
that of the US. What techniques work there that we are ignoring? Does your
police force use de-escalation? Majority of ours does not.

Perhaps the problems that the police are meant to solve are in part caused by
the police? If I was always treated as a suspect after a while I may start to
become resentful. If I was a minority representing 13% of the general
population but represented 38% of the prison population I may start to become
resentful and argue that there is a problem. Your argument that just because
people live in peaceful 7-figure neighborhoods they should be grateful to the
police for suppressing the riff raff, poor and minorities is very grating,
classist and very much racist.

The NYPD has a budget of $10 billion dollars, and the only limits imposed on
it were to please stop beating, murdering, framing and raping people. If those
limits are too stringent I am not really sure where to go from here.

~~~
john_moscow
Let me give you some anecdotes.

I have been ticketed for speeding on both sides of the border. RCMP makes is
extremely professional. The whole conversation almost sounds like getting a
bill from a roofer guy, explaining how to pay it and why you should check your
roof more often. U.S. cops have a lot more of the "Ha-ha, now you're mine,
bastard" attitude. I was extremely polite and complying both times.

Police often camps out in public events, like car shows, building trust with
people. Silly things like giving stickers to kids and letting them climb on
police ATVs for pictures, or officers showing off the tech in their cars to
car enthusiasts.

When it comes to controversial topics, optics is everything. When a couple of
student protestors blocked a major train line protesting against an oil
pipeline, and commuters got really pissed off, since they couldn't get to
their workplaces, the officer arresting them looked like a 60+ year old
grandma with the "stop fooling around, kids" look. Nobody got hurt and the
media got zero chance to blow it to any kind of a scandal.

~~~
wonderwonder
"U.S. cops have a lot more of the "Ha-ha, now you're mine, bastard" attitude."
I am not sure how this helps your argument. You are saying that right off the
bat the cops were aggressive for no reason and you were polite. How is that
situation any ones fault except the cops?

------
refurb
I'm confused. The police aren't administering the drug, EMS is. Can't you just
solve this by telling EMS not to administer it unless _they_ feel it's needed?

~~~
axaxs
It's not a life-saving drug, it's literally never needed. Guy was 140 lbs.
There's not a 140 lb man I couldn't subdue myself, probably. And I'm just an
out of shape programmer. Why do six cops feel they can't do the same?

~~~
FireBeyond
Because when the feedback loops on his 140lb musculature are blocked and he
will keep going to the point of permanent damage... and when his ability to
feel pain is decreased... and there's a very real concern for hyperthermia,
rhabdomyolysis with an extended struggle, dysrhythmia, then maybe ketamine
becomes the better option.

That being said, ketamine should be an EMS decision to minimize risk to
patient and others, not "at LE direction".

~~~
axaxs
So cops are doctors now? Or EMS even? Neither have any real medical training,
at all. No offense meant, EMS grind for little money, but they're not medical
doctors.

Narcan I was already uneasy about, but it saved real lives in obvious
situations. This is absolute lunacy.

~~~
tomcam
Do you have any idea how many medical procedures cops are trained on? It’s a
lot. They aren’t doctors but they are required to assist medically and
stabilize until EMT arrives.

~~~
axaxs
Specifically no, but I do know they are trained. That said, training is just
that. If you see X, do Y. And sure, net, it's a positive thing. But again,
they aren't medical doctors. It's not always IF THEN. Oftentimes it's IF AND
NOT THEN.

Either way, I don't want to go down a rabbit hole of arguing life saving
procedures. My entire point is that we should not be injecting people with non
emergency drugs like Ketamine.

~~~
jbnorth
Actually, we should be giving patients. Ketamine is an extremely safe drug for
paramedics to give for the safety of the patient and those around them.
Especially in cases of excited delerium where the person may actually die
because of it. In these cases ketamine is absolutely an emergency drug.

------
nojvek
The amount of fuckery American police get away with frankly really amazes me.
These are humans, not animals. How did everything even get to this situation
where police think potential criminals can be treated like slaves and random
shit injected in their bodies.

------
kepler1
I guess most people here have never been in public safety or law enforcement.

The number of drug-addled, violent, danger-to-themselves-and-others people
encountered in the US is unusually high and increasing.

This is compounded by the inability (right now) of the justice system to
either put them into either suitable treatment programs (with mandatory
detention, essentially) or incarcerate them (a gradual but steady decline in
prison space and willingness to hold and prosecute them - this is a real
problem).

When you have someone crazed out of their mind, hitting/punching, shouting
obscenities, spitting and biting at you and others on the street, being polite
isn't going to cut it.

Of course it's worthy of debate whether administration of drugs like this are
appropriate and desired by the public at large. But defined as a law
enforcement tool just like non-lethal weapons, they are (currently) totally
legitimate to use to subdue someone who's being violent and a harm to self and
others.

The mistake here was the wrong dose, not the principle. Mistakes happen, it's
our job to make sure they don't happen normally.

Please don't join the knee-jerk protest against some symbolism that police are
using this to "torture" people or commit some atrocity. Especially if you've
never even been near someone exhibiting psychotic rage (and who likely just
committed property damage or violence against another person). You act based
on a symbol - depriving public safety and law enforcement of tool after tool
because you see one or two bad examples - but then don't ever have to deal
with the consequences of your choices for the rest of the law abiding forces
acting to protect you every day.

~~~
wonnage
Violent crime has been on a decades-long decline.

~~~
person1234
That statistic specifically refers to violent crime. The original poster is
referring to mental illness and drug usage.

They are correct that occurrences of mental illness have increased over time:
[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190315110908.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190315110908.htm)

As well as overall drug usage (one way to measure is via overdoses):
[https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db329.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db329.htm)

~~~
AlanSE
Let me start with that first link, because it's a doozy. You said "mental
illness have increased over time", but the paper said that _certain_ mental
illnesses increased in _young_ Americans. Off that bat, that representation of
the facts is not right. But even worse, you are applying this to a discussion
about belligerence towards police, and the _types_ of mental illness mentioned
by the paper starts with, that's right, depression.

I do not envision depression making a person more likely to lash out in a
police confrontation. In the comment chain here, this is also presented in a
the-sky-is-falling kind of narrative about the danger of the streets in the
US. I'm going to be honest, this is upsetting to me. I was willing to listen
to where you're coming from. Is this how police think? I don't like that
thought.

