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Sunday, February 20, 2022

Either black lives matter as much as mine, or these agitated people over black lives lost might be suffering "excited delirium." (What sort of idiot or appologist would invent "excited delirium" and call it "real" and not a lying excuse to blanket-medicate police detainees whenever cops on the scene say to?)

Disgruntled and distrustful in writing this, but neither excited nor delirious over news that Frey lied, or was lied to and exceptionally "negligent" in doing hollow follow-up, or both. 

The beat goes on.

Strib, local content; " Mayor Frey: Hennepin Healthcare doctor failed to follow directive on 'excited delirium' training -- Leadership for the hospital issued an apology Monday and pledged to review medical contract with police." 

Strib, more local content, "Minneapolis Mayor Frey's credibility on police battered by false claims about reform --'This is on me, and I'm going to fix it,' the mayor says." 

Yes, Bob Kroll is no longer a cancer on the system from atop the police union. No, that seems to have made little difference. And - Klobuchar never prosecuted a cop for criminal misconduct all the while she was the top attorney having the discretion to do so, or not. Not fit her liking more than doing something.

This from the first cited Strib item - links in original:

In an interview Monday, Frey said he was "irate" when he learned from a Star Tribune article that a Police Department training video, given to officers last fall, still included mentions of excited delirium, cited studies on it and suggested officers merely call the syndrome by another name.

"The direction we gave was very clear. We wanted this to be a substantive — not a cosmetic — change," said Frey. "I directed very clearly to move away from excited delirium as both a term and a concept. … The video you're referencing was not in line."

Leadership for Hennepin Healthcare also issued an apology Monday saying they "failed to follow through on our promise to no longer teach excited delirium and to be intentional in addressing systemic racism."

"We are extremely sorry for the further harm this has caused to our community," said the letter, signed by Hennepin Healthcare CEO Jennifer DeCubellis, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Daniel Hoody and Chief Health Equity Officer Dr. Nneka Sederstrom.

"Systemic racism is deeply imbedded in law enforcement and health care systems, including ours," the letter continued. "We failed to address it here when we had the opportunity and, in doing so, have caused further pain and mistrust."

The training video, obtained through a public records request, featured Hennepin Healthcare's Dr. Paul Nystrom teaching that the terminology "excited delirium" has become "triggering" for the public, suggesting they call it "severe agitation with delirium" or another euphemism. "That being said, the condition exists," he says. "We all agree the entity exists"

"I wouldn't go to an operating room and tell an anesthesiologist how to practice," says Nystrom, who moonlights as a sworn police officer. "Most of us don't appreciate somebody else getting in our lane when they don't do the things that we do."

Last year, the American Medical Association (AMA) publicly rejected excited delirium, calling the diagnosis a vague umbrella term and the "manifestation of systemic racism" used to justify excessive police force and unneeded sedatives, disproportionately on people of color.

Excited delirium has become a central part of the defense for three former Minneapolis police officers currently on trial in federal court in connection with George Floyd's death. One of the former officers, Thomas Lane, wondered aloud if Floyd was suffering from excited delirium as they detained him. Over the past three weeks, attorneys for Lane, J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao have pored over slideshows and cross-examined police witnesses on the teaching of excited delirium, suggesting the officers were only following their training.

Earlier this month, the Police Department and Frey's office contacted the Star Tribune claiming that the training was updated last year, after the AMA published its new policy rejecting the diagnosis. But a group of doctors who evaluated the video at the request of the Star Tribune called the changes "window dressing" and a "superficial adjustment in language" filled with shoddy research that attempts to debunk, rather than adopt, the AMA recommendations.

After the story published online Saturday, Frey, who initially did not comment, issued a statement saying he had "directed the department to immediately terminate their contract with Dr. Nystrom."

Blame him, the mayor says. Don't really blame me, the mayor implies. It looks as if Frey arguably overreacted in scapegoating the doctor, as if doing so in a fit of excited delirium without daring to look in the mirror and say, "You! You first! Then others." Saying "I reformed," without actually doing so, or checking to see if an order given was one followed, is a questionable show of competence or caring earlier, when "I reformed" was first packaged and sold, on the mayor's word and with no other counter-evidence back then.

Not only Frey at fault? What about the two healthcare officials who sat out the opportunity to institute true reform, while merely giving a little-caring lip-service directive. 

You tell me - Is a directive absent competent follow-up worth a pinch of dirt? Frey says so, but what do you say? Mayors caught in newspaper follow-up, with none on their own - what's that worth as coin of the realm?

Busy man. Excuses easy. Being mayor of a large and diverse city is no easy job. But excuses should likewise be something besides too easy. 

Don't blame me. I blog while living in the rabid-Republican north 'burbs, so I had no chance to vote against Frey in favor of Kate Knuth, the progressive woman running against him. Some favor ranked-choice-voting while I do not and offer Frey's reelection in evidence. He did not deserve a second term, in my view, and you can decide whether he even deserved the first.

How is the water these days in Flint, Michigan?