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Don't catch this disease
I wonder if I should go see the cops for my next physical exam instead of my doctor - they seem to be getting most adroit at detecting unusual maladies not generally known to medical science. And if Dr. Terri L. Haddix is to be believed, the police aren't to blame when it came to the deaths of Jay Vestal and Keith Yecny, two SLO County men who died while being restrained by cops. Instead, Dr. Haddix says that a strange disorder contracted by Vestal and Yecny caused their untimely deaths.
It may sound like I'm writing some sort of anti-police column this week, what with my snide tone in that first paragraph, but that's not true at all. I'm just confused over how Vestal and Yecny died, and perplexed over why the pronouncements of people like Dr. Haddix are so readily accepted by the media and everyone else.
Jay Vestal was arrested by sheriff's deputies outside his home in Templeton where, after putting up a struggle, he was pronounced dead at the scene. Keith Yecny was arrested by SLOPD officers and booked into county jail where, after a struggle with cops, he "suddenly experienced a medical emergency," according to police, and died seven days later at Sierra Vista Hospital.
What these two had in common besides being surrounded by cops was methamphetamine in their bloodstreams. They were doing drugs, or had been in the recent past.
The sheriff's report on both listed something called "excited delirium" as the cause of death, a term that sounds like what happens when you finally get what you really wanted for your birthday. I'm overtaken by it whenever there's a "Twilight Zone" marathon on TV. I jest here merely because this all seems jest-worthy, or would be if it weren't so damn serious, so I'll cut it out.
Enter Dr. Haddix, a forensic pathologist from Northern California, hired by the sheriff to look into Yecny's death. She's had experience in "custodial death investigations" and came to the conclusion that Yecny died of cardiopulmonary arrest due to excited delirium which was, in turn, brought on by "the toxic effect of methamphetamine use."
Put more simply, Dr. Haddix thinks he'd done some meth, then gotten overexcited, which put a strain on his heart, which killed him. With Vestal, the coroner originally concluded that asphyxiation was the culprit due to too many cops sitting on him, until Dr. Haddix came along and said, no, it's another case of excited delirium brought on by drugs and a weakened heart.
Now, I'm not saying that the good doctor doesn't know her stuff. Wait. Yes I am. In fact, In fact, I think the entire excited delirium notion deserves some rethinking.
Lots of people do meth. Then they go out dancing or running or jumping up and down. But you never hear that they dropped dead from excited delirium. In fact, the only time you hear of it is when the police are around. Maybe it's the badges or the uniforms. Maybe if they'd remove them before gang-tackling someone, the entire thing could be avoided.
But, again, I jest. It's funny, in a macabre way, that everyone seems so ready to believe something just because it has a fancy-foo medical name attached to it.
In the sheriff's report to the media last week, Chief Deputy Gregory W. Slane said that Dr. Haddix's autopsy "ruled out the existence of evidence of any significant injury or trauma as a result of [Yecny's] struggle with custody staff," which sounds peculiar since it seems like the struggle from the restraint brought on the excitement that led the meth to bring on the delirium that brought on the heart failure. I mean, she couldn't be saying that excited delirium just happens spontaneously without any other outside influences, could she? You think? No, I don't know, either.
But maybe so. And maybe I should take some time to go get that physical.
GERRYMANDER: As you no doubt know by now, a jury returned a guilty verdict this week to Ken Freitas, who'd run down and killed pedestrian Sarah Scruggs in a Grover Beach crosswalk two years ago. The jury found him guilty of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter, and he now faces up to a year in jail.
Those are the hard, cruel facts. Behind the scenes, you probably remember how District Attorney Gerald Shea goofed around with the case for months before finally buckling under pressure and bringing it to court. Ken Freitas, you know, is the son of former county tax collector Frank Freitas.
The DA considered prosecuting the son of a county official a conflict of interest, even though it didn't fit the definition used by the state, which didn't matter to Shea. He didn't want this hot potato, no way, no how, so the case moved from desk to desk, languishing through the months until eventually attracting the state attorney general, who Shea implored to no avail.
After all the protracted delays and wimpy obfuscations, the case finally found a judge and a jury and a resolution: guilty. All of which demonstrates that Shea & Co. didn't need so much contorted backpedaling, and proving that their gross cowardice was exactly that. Hey, the jury said guilty after a successful prosecution. Chalk one more up for our courageous DA. Sort of.
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