California is the first state to ban the term ‘excited delirium’ as a cause of death

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Among the new bills signed into law this weekend in California is Assembly Bill 360, authored by Assemblyman Mike Gipson. The bill, now law, aims to ban the term “excited delirium” as a cause of death.

Gipson says he was made aware of the issue when in 2020, Filipino-American Navy veteran Angelo Quinto “dealing with a mental health crisis, stopped breathing while two police officers knelt on his back and neck. Mr. Quinto’s official cause of death was determined to be excited delirium. That is absolutely absurd,” Gipson says.

Many deaths have already been attributed to excited delirium and according to investigations, the majority of these cases involved force by law enforcement authorities.

“We are very excited to share that the Governor of California has signed Assembly Bill 360 into law!!!
This is a great win for our communities across the state of California and we hope it will lead to similar laws being passed across the country, banning the use of the term “Excited Delirium” by medical examiners and law enforcement personnel.”/Photo from Diana Puente/Facebook

Physicians for Human Rights writes, “A January 2020 Florida Today report found that of 85 deaths attributed to ‘excited delirium’ by Florida medical examiners since 2010, at least 62 percent involved the use of force by law enforcement.”

What causes excited delirium?

Excited delirium, according to the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine, is “characterized by agitation, aggression, acute distress, and sudden death, often in the pre-hospital care setting. It is typically associated with the use of drugs that alter dopamine processing, hyperthermia, and, most notably, sometimes with death of the affected person in the custody of law enforcement.”

Excited delirium, they note, has also been gaining public attention because of how medical examiners have been using it as a cause of death for cases of individuals who have been restrained or taken into police custody. Such was the case of the late Quinto in 2020.

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This has also caused concern within medical circles because “[excited delirium] is not a currently recognized medical or psychiatric diagnosis according to either the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association or the International Classification of Diseases of the World Health Organization.”

California governor Gavin Newsom’s signing of the bill has officially made the state the first in the US to ban the controversial term.