In 2018, paramedics found Jerica LaCour curled up in a truck lot, crying. When they strapped her to a gurney, she begged them to let her go home to her five children. Instead, they injected her with ketamine to quiet her. Minutes later, she died.
Behind these sedations is an anti-Black pseudo-condition called "excited delirium." Citing superhuman strength, psychosis, and noncompliance as symptoms, a deputy chief medical examiner first used the term in the 80s to theorize that Black people as a “species,” and especially Black women combining sex and cocaine use, have a genetic predisposition to dying.
The company that manufactures Tasers spread the idea in 2005. And, from 2012 through 2021, 94 people died after being restrained by police and injected with sedatives. About half of them were Black.
From Jerica LaCour to Elijah McClain, excited delirium has become a classic excuse for police, offering a cause of death aside from the injections, Tasings, and restraints they use to kill us. Even if authorities stop sedating us, what about the dehumanizing logic behind the injections?
Anti-Black logics characterize us as subhuman and violent — ideas foundational to the system of policing. At a minimum, we deserve a system that doesn't identify Black people as impervious to pain. We shouldn't have to remind authorities that even when in crisis, we are human, too.