Fatality report into Taser death urges more training for Edmonton police
Police officers should be trained to call for emergency medical help immediately when they see symptoms of excited delirium syndrome in a person they are dealing with, a judge has recommended after a fatality inquiry.
"Excited delirium syndrome is a medical matter that requires immediate medical attention," provincial court Judge Lloyd Malin wrote in his report into the October 2013 death of 39-year-old Simon Chung, who had been Tasered twice by Edmonton police while high on methamphetamine.
"Police should be trained to call for emergency medical services as soon as excited delirium syndrome is suspected regardless of the need for restraint or other police action."
Malin acknowledged that to ensure safety to medical interveners, police restraint measures — including the use of force — might be required before medical intervention is attempted.
The judge also recommended that police procedures for dealing with people showing symptoms of excited delirium syndrome be widened to include "police interactions with all individuals and not limited to those policies and procedures dealing with the use of force."
Malin's report was released Thursday. The fatality inquiry into Chung's death was held in Edmonton in November 2015.
The inquiry heard that around 11 p.m. on Oct. 24, 2013, two Edmonton police officers came across Chung and two females near 96th Street and 106A Avenue. Both officers knew Chung and knew he was involved with drugs. They saw him push one of the females to the ground and prevent her from standing up.
When the officers tried to intervene, Chung confronted them. He was covered in sweat but wearing light clothes despite the cold. He was grinding his teeth, speaking rapidly in words that couldn't be understood, and bouncing on his feet.
His pupils were large and he was staring. Both officers believed he might be intoxicated by drugs or alcohol or both. One officer "began to believe that Chung was in a state of excited delirium," Malin wrote.
The officers grappled with Chung, punching, kicking and kneeing him, and trying to get him in a choke hold, but the smaller Chung showed "extraordinary strength" for his five-foot-six-inch, 205-lb. size.
One officer pressed a conducted energy weapon against Chung's lower right abdomen and discharged it for five seconds. Chung fell to the ground but broke off the weapon's probes and stood up. He tried to walk away towards the Mustard Seed Church.
Second blast lasted 28 seconds
The same officer reloaded and fired again, hitting Chung in the back with a blast that continued for 28 seconds, until after the officers had got the man into handcuffs on the ground.
Lying on his stomach, with his hands cuffed behind him, Chung "continued to struggle and wriggle and attempt to stand up," Malin wrote.
More police officers arrived. Emergency Medical Services was called to help removing the Taser darts from Chung.
Face-down on the ground, he was turned slightly so he could breathe more easily. But his eyes began to flutter, he gasped and aspirated fluid. His breathing became rapid and shallow. He was then repositioned so that he was lying on his back, with his hands handcuffed in front of him.
"At that time, Chung appeared to stop breathing altogether," Malin wrote. A police officer and then a paramedic did chest compressions in an ambulance on the way to the Royal Alexandra Hospital.
Victim had meth in system
Chung was treated in intensive care but declared brain dead. He was pronounced dead Oct. 30, 2013, about a week after his interaction with police.
Toxicology tests revealed "a concentration of methamphetamine, which in the opinion of the medical examiner was sufficient to put Chung in a state of excited delirium and, independent of that syndrome, sufficient to result in his death," Malin wrote.
The inquiry heard from a medical expert whose research indicates that the incidence of death following the use of force in the restraint of people showing symptoms of excited delirium syndrome "is rare, perhaps as little" as two per cent.
"Although the death of Chung ultimately followed the use of force in his restraint, it could not be concluded that the use of such force was the cause of his death and statistically it is not likely that it was," Malin wrote.
