Radley Balko: Just found this 2020 NYT obit for Charles Wetli, the guy who invented excited delirium. He claimed a series of deaths of black sex workers were caused by a condition unique to black women in which they just drop dead after mixing sex & cocaine. They were actually murdered by a serial killer.

Just found this 2020 NYT obit for Charles Wetli, the guy who invented excited delirium. He claimed a series of deaths of black sex workers were caused by a condition unique to black women in which they just drop dead after mixing sex & cocaine. They were actually murdered by a serial killer.

Charles Wetli, Medical Examiner for T.W.A. Flight 800 Crash, Dies at 76 (Published 2020)www.nytimes.com Families blamed him for not identifying the victims fast enough, but in the end, he “put a name on every bit of human remains recovered.”

Wetli would later expand the condition to include black men, whom he theorized might have a genetic condition that causes them to (a) assume superhouman strength and imperviousness to pain, and (b) spontaneously die while in police custody.

Wetli's new diagnosis both gave cops a reason to be especially aggressive with black men, and provided an excuse when that aggression led to unnecessary death. He became a consultant for Axon (Taser) and a frequent expert defense witness for cops accused of abuse.

It's remarkable that none of this made his obituary. It's an incredibly destructive legacy.

Yet another example of how “history will judge them poorly” is silly

He just set the record straight in this thread. Yes, classism exists. Yet we do have access to the truth and the ability to continue to hold people accountable. We have to stop pretending the way things are is the way it must be. The NYT isn't the center if the universe.

A thread on bluesky is not "setting the record straight."

Case closed. One post on bluesky and history will forever remember him as a monster

lol

Erinn. That dude was being racist, not classist. He made claims about the physiology of black people.

Uh huh. And how many people are going to read this thread versus the NYT obit? (or simply not read it and think “excited delirium” is still real)

So share gratuitously. With those who care.

I don’t find the fact that the NYT memory-holed that aspect to be remarkable in the least.

Today it would make it into his NYT obit, but it would be cited approvingly.

The New York Times, baby. They promote racism, then they erase it.

Sadly, not surprising for The NY Times these days.

NYT NYTing. As usual.

Junk science pushed by stupid bigots is an essential element of American police culture www.pbssocal.org/shows/socal-...

Jesus tapdancing Christ. "Siri, show me an excuse for why Black Americans die in police custody more often than white Americans."

Did anyone ever turn this around on cops and point out that, now that they "know this", they have to treat black suspects with kid gloves or the cops risk being guilty of negligent homicide /whatever the proper term is? If not this exactly, I would think it would be useful in civil proceedings.

You would think! But last year I went looking through legal databases for just those sorts of cases. You're never going to believe this, but when the families of people killed by cops make this point, *this* is when the courts are willing to entertain the idea that maybe ED really is bullshit.

My father is a forensic pathologist and is constantly raving about/against others in his field that revert to junk science (bullet rifling pattern-matching, “float” tests for stillbirths, bite mark matching, etc). It’s terrifying

Wait, the rifling thing isn't true? I know it wouldn't be accurate enough to get the exact gun but I thought an intact bullet could get you make and model...

My understanding is that it’s all bunk, but that LEOs are trying to claim that at least they can match the model of gun (also, I believe, unsupported by any scientific rigor whatsoever)

The Field of Firearms Forensics Is Flawedwww.scientificamerican.com The matching of bullets to guns is subjective, and courts are starting to question it because of testimony from scientific experts

If you are in possession of the knowledge that black men are more likely to die from chokeholds and that does not instantly lead to a cessation of your chokehold policy, then you are a monster.

This is a hair away from: "In this study, we will show that Black men are harmed in police custody more often because they have more punchable faces."

Dear God.

Fucking Daryl Gates, of course

IIRC, this was the explanation given by Milwaukee "Police Chief for Life" Harold Breier after the death of an innocent man, Earnest Lacy, in a police van in 1981.

I bet there was a lot of threatening tone behind the word "hunch."

Jimmy the Greek, Police Consultant

and the NY Times

😳

Egg shell plaintiff except when it can be used to hold cops accountable

Not a credible COD. Nobody just dies of "complications" from "lung cancer". Far more likely that the racism sac in his thorax ruptured and he drowned in his own caustic fluids.

"Black people are Kryptonians, and cops are kryptonite!" is amazingly stupid, so it's unsurprising that a profession which fought for the legal right to discriminate against people who scored too high on IQ tests (google it) would believe it.

The one silver lining to this stuff is it reminds me that the current era might not be uniquely stupid.

It's still the most commonly diagnosed cause for deaths in police custody!

Yeah, I about to mention -- it's not a dead theory. It is still defended by all of the same people who on TV cop shows are supposed to be finding out all sorts of amazing clues from dead bodies about how murders happened and who in reality just cover up murder by cops

😳

This sounds like something right out of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. Its description is so shamelessly ridiculous and its reason for being so clear that it parodies itself.

Was dude a script consultant for Alien Nation? Excited delirium cop buddy film. With aliens.

I’m glad CO struck “excited delirium” from all police diagnosis and training manuals following Elijah McClain’s murder. Though I do wonder what will come next in the junk science industry.

Andrew Sullivan’s mentor?

Quacks 🤝 Cops BFFS 4 EVA

ME: Detective, We’ve got it narrowed down to two potential causes. 1. A thing no one has ever heard of that for some reason only happens to black women. 2. A serial killer. Det: ok let’s go with the one that gives me less work.

That’s always the answer that police go for

The 'Things Fell Apart' podcast on him is rage inducing.

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