The autopsy report on Jen Dold's brother called his death an accident. Their mother had called 911 for help getting Alex Dold, 29, to the hospital near Seattle because he was in a mental health crisis.
Four sheriff’s deputies and two police officers shocked him with Tasers, wrapped an arm around his neck, punched and kicked him, and left him face down until they noticed he wasn’t breathing. Jen Dold was certain it was a homicide.
Police rarely face criminal charges when civilians die after officers use physical force. Whether they do can depend on medical examiners and coroners who decide how and why someone died — what’s known as the manner and cause of death.
On TV dramas facts and established science determine whether a death was an accident or homicide. In reality, medical investigations involving police restraint deaths can be so riddled with inconsistencies, suspect science or conflicts of interest that even extensive force may matter little, an investigation led by the Associated Press found.
The probe fund that over a decade more than 1,000 people died after police subdued them with physical force that is not supposed to be lethal. (you can explore the full database of cases here.)
In hundreds of these encounters officers broke multiple guidelines, including when they pinned people face down. Dozens of deaths show the risks of injecting sedatives into people restrained by police, while force in one city shows how a culture of aggression persists at some departments.
AP’s reporting led the Police Executive Research Forum to publish new guidelines for handling encounters involving what’s known as less-lethal force.
Accident was the most common conclusion of medical investigations in AP's case database. Accidental rulings typically blamed preexisting conditions such as obesity or asthma, or drug use, even when in some cases blood testing did not detect lethal levels. Others faulted “excited delirium,” a controversial diagnosis discredited by major medical associations. Some medical officials based their decisions not on physical evidence, but instead on whether they believed police intended to kill.
Manner of death decisions are so pivotal that police and their allies push to shape them, with the multibillion-dollar company behind Tasers peppering medical officials with research it funded or wrote that downplays the dangers of its weapon.
The degree of physical and professional separation a medical official had from local law enforcement appeared to affect rulings. Deaths were ruled accidents more frequently when medical examiners or coroners were in the same community as the department under investigation, or when they fell under the control of law enforcement.
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