Paramedics told investigators that Elijah McClain had ‘excited delirium,’ a disputed condition

By COLLEEN SLEVIN
Associated Press

BRIGHTON, Colo. (AP) — Two paramedics on trial over the 2019 death of Elijah McClain told investigators in videotaped interviews previously unseen in public that the 23-year-old Black man had “excited delirium,” a disputed condition critics say is unscientific and rooted in racism. McClain died after being stopped by police while walking home from a convenience store then forcibly restrained and injected with ketamine by the paramedics in the Denver suburb of Aurora. Paramedics there were trained starting in 2018 to use ketamine, a sedative, to treat excited delirium. But critics say such diagnoses have been misused to justify excessive force against suspects.