Part Two: Excited Delirium: How Cops Invented A Disease

Robert is joined again by Ben Bowlin to continue to discuss Excited Delirium.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
M hmm. What's justifying murder my corrupt doctors paid by
a mega corporation in order to increase profits for dangerous
electric murder guns used by violent people in order to

(00:21):
enforce white supremacy. Ship I lost the threat of that
introduction a little bit. Well, you're welcome down Behind the Bastards,
the podcast that you know what podcast? This is Nobody's
Nobody's dropping into episode two for the first time, not

(00:43):
having listened to any of our other episodes. You know
who I am? You know what we do? Motherfucker's Robert Evans,
motherfucker's this is Behind the Bastards? Motherfuck Are we not
doing that? And we're not not a little much? That's
a little bit much. So it's a little bit much.
Turn it down. Come on, this is Behind the Bastard.
There we go. He's Robert Evans. Now I am Robert Evans.

(01:06):
This is Behind the Bastards. And my guest for part
two of our episode on Excited Delirium is Ben Bowland. Ben.
How are you doing today, Ben? Ben? Hey, thanks so much,
Thanks so much for having me back again. Guys, and
new things got sort of uh dicey at the end
for anybody who wasn't listening in to part one. I
think a lot of people might be tuning in just

(01:28):
for part two. But yeah, yeah, just just for part two.
They said, I don't want don't they read the description? Now,
I want to go in media rez baby, Yeah, Tabula Rossau,
coming in, uh, coming in hot Uh. Yeah. Thanks for
having me back. I know things got difficult off air.

(01:48):
We had some creative differences read De Rito's which is fine.
But I'm I'm glad. I'm glad to be here. Yeah,
I'm I'm glad to have you back. I'm also glad
to continue to guessing whether or not to reintroduce De
Rito's plugs. To be honest, when when it comes to
the old running jokes that I'd like to reintroduce, I'm
really looking forward to getting in a studio again and

(02:10):
just damaging company property with a machette and various thrown objects.
That's that's the thing I'm most excited for. I've been
practicing and I'm gonna throw a bagel in your face.
Really yeah, I mean it's one of those things. I've
come to the conclusion that, you know, the pandemic, it
gave us some necessary pause time you know, um, because

(02:33):
we've been doing that a little bit too much. People
were like a little bit too much throwing stuff. But
now the pandemic, I think people are ready for it again.
And that's that that that kind of makes it all worthwhile,
doesn't it. Yeah, I'm gonna everything, Bagel uh good stuff.
Before we get started, though, I do wanna give give

(02:55):
you a shout out for the show and Robert you personally,
because I was I was listening to some of the
old school behind the Bastards and and it hit me.
I was, I was, I was listening to this and
was one of the one of the machete moments, as
I call him, and I was thinking, damn, my machete
is really old. All right, Well, what's what's your brand? Oh?

(03:17):
Is it one where you don't know the brand? It's
just an old knife, old machete. Yeah, yeah, it's just
an old is it one of those big stamped steel deals?
Like kind of one of those like I think a
lot of them, may Mill Salvador. It's kind of a
thin stamped piece of metal with an edge on it. Yeah,
actually nailed it. Yeah. Those are great, those are I mean,
honestly for most I mean well, it's just because if
you actually go to the places in the world where

(03:37):
like every single person, like right down to the old ladies,
is walking around with a machete, like Guatemala, Like fucking
there's big parts of Guatemala where everyone you see is
just gonna have one on them because it's like a
life tool. I used to live there. Yeah you're right,
Oh I didn't know that. Yeah, I spent months there.
Where were you? I was in Ja lah yeah yeah
yeah yeah yeah yeah. I wasn't cool enough. It was

(04:01):
frauded lan um. But yeah, it's like whenever you see
people who who use machetes all the damn time, it
tends to be one of those stamped steel ones because
like they work, they do the job. They're fucking unkillable.
You can just run them on like one of those,
you know, one of those foot powered sharpening wheels, um,

(04:21):
sharpen it up and it's they're not fancy, so like,
yeah that uses up steel, but you don't care. It's
not like a your teasonal knife. Um, they're great. I
love those. I love those machetes for all that I
enjoyed my artisanal machetes. If I'm just gonna go out
and fuck a knife up. I'm going to use one
of those, right, But speaking of fucking things up, Robert,

(04:42):
this is part two of a very fucked up situation. Yes,
yes it is, and we're we're talking about so when
we when we last left, uh, this very fun story
we were talking, I had introduced a guy named Dr
Jeffrey Hoe. Because we just talked about Charles Wetley and
Deborah Mash to Dr years Um, who receive a decent

(05:03):
amount of money we don't know exactly how much from
the Axon Corporation to Um explain why tasers didn't cause
taser related deaths. And now we are going to talk
about Dr Jeffrey Ho, who is like like the the
ultimate form of that kind of doctor. This guy is
such a shady motherfucker. If there's a single biggest bastard

(05:26):
of the episode, it's Dr Jeffrey Ho. So Ho worked
for ten years as an e er doctor in Hinnepin
County Medical Center in Minneapolis. The fact that we're talking
about Minneapolis and Key went on some of where this
is going now. From an early stage in his medical career,
Doctor Hoe got involved in shall we say extracurricular work.

(05:48):
He was hired by a nearby fire department to direct
medical services there, which is great. He consulted for a
private medical product company, which it is probably okay. He
enlisted in the National Guard, and he taught at the
University of Minnesota Medical School, and then he took a
side gig working with the Minneapolis Police swat team. This

(06:09):
dalliance with law enforcement was apparently so appealing to Dr
Ho that in two thousand three he returned to school
to get a two year degree in law enforcement, which
was a requirement to pass the police Licensing Board in Minnesota.
He became a part time police officer near Minneapolis. And
so far my feelings on policing aside based on the
standards of our society at its present moment, that's not

(06:31):
the worst thing in the world, right. Doctors can moonlight
like cops get to moonlight as security guards. I guess
why wouldn't it a doctor be able to moonlight as
a cop. Like theoretically, if you're a doctor and a cop,
when you horribly injure someone, maybe you can provide life
saving medical aid to them. More. I don't know, Like,
um oh, I'm pictoring like the the worst eighties movie. Right, yeah,

(06:56):
Dr Cop, doct doctor Cops. It would be funny to
just redo dirty Harry. But every time he shoots someone,
he then like he puts on a tourniquet. Once I
kill him, I go right in the doctor mode. Um.

(07:18):
So yeah, that's a little a little sketchy. But again
based on sort of the standards of our society so far,
I guess I don't think he's violating anything. I don't
think there's any rule that says a doctor can't be
a cop, so whatever, Um seems a little odd to me. Now.
While doctor Hoe was starting his journey into law enforcement,
Axon had a Nebraska doctor named Robert Stratbooker as their

(07:39):
chief medical advisor. In two thousand five, Dr Stratbucker signed
on as a consultant to help conduct a massive study
funded by the U S Department of Justice to look
at the safety of stun guns. The study was being
managed by a University of Wisconsin professor named John Webster,
and it was supposed to be completely independent of Axon
or any other stunt gun manufact her. Right, this is

(08:00):
the d o J wants to do a big study
on whether or not stunned dens are safe, which is
a reasonable thing for the d o J to do, right, Like,
you're buying all these stun guns, you probably know how
often they kill people. Um So, Dr Stratbucker gets named
as one of the consultants on that study even though
he's in the employee of Accon, which is kind of shady.
And I'm gonna quote from an NBC right up now.

(08:22):
In March, both Webster and a Taser spokesman told the
AP the company had no ties to their research. In
his grant proposal, Webster proposed stratt Bucker received eighteen thousand
dollars in salary and travel expenses for his advice. Strat
Bucker's resume was included, but did not mention his work
for Taser, and Webster checked the box to deny any
conflict of interest. Now, Ben, I'm not a doctor, nor

(08:48):
am I. Well, I'm a kind of scientist. You can
see I I actually am a reverend doctor, so I
am the perfect person. And I've experimented with different kinds
of dangerous drugs on my friends and families, so you know,
I I am a good person to say this. I
would argue that if you are conducting a d J
study on whether or not tasers are safe and you're

(09:10):
paid by Taser, that is a conflict of interest. Yeah, well,
well it's a it's a perfect alignment of interest for
the people who are selling out human beings for some
extra cash. That's that's jolly good for them as as ah,

(09:31):
it's it's not well written, that's the part. Like, if
you were writing this to be as insidious and evil
as it is, you would come up with maybe better motivations.
And it's one of those things. I don't know how
much Stratbucker is getting paid by ACTS. It has to
be more than eighteen grand, because like for a doctor,

(09:51):
for someone in that kind of income bracket, and I'm
in I'm going to guess a similar income bat bracket
to strat Bucker. Eighteen grand doesn't chump change, right, you'd
miss it if it came out of your bank account.
But it's not enough to sell your soul for, right.
He's got to be getting a lot of money from
ACTS on on this, because eighteen grand is not enough
to sell your soul out um, if you're in that
kind of income bracket, right, Because he's not fucking starving

(10:14):
on the street. He's a very prominent doctor and professor. Um,
he's got money like that, there's got to be And
that's one of the like a lot of times when
they talk about how much these different doctors are getting paid,
it's like ten or twenty grand, and you know, like, no,
there's more fucking cash coming to you than that, Like
I don't I can't prove that. I don't know because
these are private payments, right, he's not. It's not a

(10:36):
government employee. But you have to be getting more money
than that. Eighteen grands not enough, you know, not. It
comes through different ways. Yeah, that's how it works. It
will come through a different direction. Uh. There there are
a lot of things that are easily easily lost unfortunately
when it comes to those kind of payments. Uh. And
then also we have to consider as messy and and

(11:01):
depressing shitty as it is to point out there are
people at that income level who are driven to a
great degree by a self delusion and ideology, you know
what I mean. So yeah, they're just down to clown.
They're down to fucking clown. Yeah. Uh so. Um. In

(11:21):
two thousand, in May of two thousand five, documents were
uncovered that showed strat Bucker had received both cash and
stock options from as On, and again, I don't have
an exact number there, but you have to assume it's
a lot, especially the stock options, which gives him a
further invested interest in the company's success, right, because how
much those options are worth are valued on how much
acts On is worth, which has directly related to whether

(11:42):
or not the Justice Department decides tasers are safe enough
for cops to use. You know, now, the Justice Department
very shadily claimed that they've known about Stratbucker's affiliation with
ax On the whole time, and they didn't consider it
a big deal because obviously you need a taser expert
on a study to determine whether or not tasers are
deadly or than advertised. Dr Webster's response to the reveal

(12:02):
of his relationship with Axon seems to have put the
lie to this. He told the AP quote, in view
of this potential conflict of interest, I can make the
statement that I have not received advice or paid Stratbucker,
and I will not use him in the future. So
Webster pulled back didn't pay Stratbucker the eighteen grand cut
him from the study um and this kind of like

(12:23):
spoils Dr Stratbucker, right, because now he can't be a
part of these studies that they are going to continue
to be done on the taser because journalists revealed the
fact that he has a conflict of interest. Now, for Axon,
this meant that they needed to shop around for a
new scientist to tweak research in order to make their
products seem safe. Tasers had gone viral among law enforcement

(12:44):
agencies and a ton of folks wound up dying or
being horribly injured by cops who were using electrocution guns.
Axons lawyers were now fielding dozens of lawsuits and they
needed a way to assure investors that they were going
to get past this and salvage their image. Now, thanks
to Reuters, we have access to a packet for investors
that acts On handed out where they proposed a solution

(13:05):
to their bad pr and lawsuit problem. This solution was
to employ a group of quote world class medical professionals
to defend the brand. Now, the doctors we've talked about,
we're all brought on for that reason. And I want
to read you a chunk from this investor document because
it really is one of the most sociopathic things I've
ever come across. So this is the Ason Corporation talking
to investors. As a result of various litigation inquiries and

(13:30):
proposed legislation mentioned above, we had to incur significant general
and administrative expenditures in two thousand five, an investment in
protecting our brand, equity and educating the various public interests
in our technology. In particular, we incurred substantial incremental legal, lobbying,
public relations, and related traveling costs, which ultimately had an
adverse impact on our overall profitability in two thousand five. However,

(13:53):
we believe these investments were well worth the cost. In
many cases, what began as adverse circumstances for us yielded
opportunities to educate high level public leaders in the faith
in the value of our products. Those adverse circumstances were
tasers killing people and then being like, well, but then
we got to fight it in court proved that it

(14:13):
wasn't the taser, So these adverage it really was a
boon to us that we killed these people. It's off
the hook. Yeah, not cool, We're good, but totally expected.
I guess I'm baffled at the last, like, how much
of that is an act and how much of that is,

(14:35):
in your opinion, as you said, like a sociopathic lack
of awareness or lack of caring about that very apparent
lack of carry Like do they know they have to
because they're they're the ones. We'll we'll talk about this later,
but they are actively fighting to force medical profess chals

(15:00):
not to diagnose UM tasteer related deaths? Is taste related deaths?
Like that's a thing they go to do. They hire
these people to tweak research and stuff. Now, I'm sure
there's a lot of employees that light to themselves about
what they're doing. But we have some real problems. I mean,
the overall problem is just the fact that there's a
certain amount of these people in any society. And that's

(15:21):
why you should dissolve UM systems, that systems that put
power in people's hands wherever possible, because you can't get
rid of these people. They're always going to exist, but
you can get rid of power UM. And this is
a perfect example. Axon has a great deal of power
and they use it to hide the fact that they

(15:42):
sell electrocution machines. Well said, at all points, I I
I agree. I wish it wasn't true, but that might
be the most viable, if ambitious solution to remove the power.
If you cannot in a feasible way remove the tendency. Yeah,
I don't think, and I don't think you can remove

(16:04):
the tendency. There will always be I don't know. This
is getting a little off topic, but what one of
my favorite books, Tried by Sebastian Younger, does talk a bit,
and there's other books that talk about like some of
these people who don't have we would say a conscience, right,
there's uses for these people Historically, you know, if you're
part of a hunter gatherer tribe and you have a
real fucking bad winter and some hard decisions need to

(16:26):
be made about who's going to be left behind, who's
going to get a limited supply of food. A lot
of people can't make those calls, and sociopaths can um.
But then you wind up in that that is, in
a situation where you have a small number of people
and while like you, you decide like they, they are

(16:48):
as affected by those decisions as everyone else because it's
all part of a small group that's trying to survive.
In adverse conditions. Um. Where it becomes maladaptive on a
societal level is when you have individuals like that who
will never face the consequences of their decisions and who
are not impacted by them, and they're just hurting other
people because our society allows them to be completely divorced

(17:12):
from the consequences of their actions because they have money
in a position of influence. UM. That's that's when it
really becomes a problem. These these people who have tendencies
that continue to persist in humanity for a reason, um,
because they provide some benefits to society, UM, become fundamentally

(17:32):
toxic to society because they're completely divorced from the consequences
of their actions. You know, when a hunter gatherer tribes,
someone like that, if they go too far or get
too much power, the rest of the tribe will just
murder them. Like that happens a lot in These people
like that doesn't happen here because they're the CEO of
acx on, you know, and they have bodyguards and a

(17:52):
whole systems set up to protect them. UM. It's the
same story with you know, these these pharmacyeos who have
jacked at the price of insulin right, it's it's the
same story with every American president pretty much. I mean,
well said. And then also, I don't think I don't
think this is a diversion at all, because you're you're
bringing it back around. And the only point I would

(18:14):
add is, um, when we talk about the evolutionary necessity
of some of those uh cognitive like some of that
cognitive hardware or design, but we have to realize is that,
you know, and I think this is what you're getting at,
Robert Um. The need, the need for that kind of

(18:36):
person in society is somewhat archaic, investigial, like there there
is potential to do something else. Humans are just very
bad at changing and general Yeah, yeah, yeah, we share
are But you know what we're not bad at? Then, oh,

(18:57):
what's that? Producing products and services? And doesn't then make
it all worthwhile in the end, the products the services.
You know, sure, we're killing the planet and a lot
of the people on it and a lot of the
life on it, you know, boiling the oceans, all that stuff,
But by god, we have products and we have services,
and where would we be without those products and services?

(19:19):
Watching a lot more sunsets sleeping under the stars anyway,
here's smacks. We're back and we're talking about um um
doctor Hoe in his relationship to the Axon Corporation and
how it started. So we just talked about Robert strap
Bucker who gets exposed in two thousand five, and right

(19:40):
around that time, the axe On Corporation reached out to
a doctor at the Hinnepin County Medical Center to ask
if he wanted to be a consultant for them. Now,
this doctor, whoever he was, had too much on his
plate already, but he said, Hey, I know another doctor
who's a workaholic boot liquor. Here's his number. And that
is how Dr Jeffrey Ho wound up on the payroll
of Big Taser. From a write up and the Star Tribune,

(20:02):
which is a Minneapolis paper that has done I don't
know generally anything about this paper, they've done some incredible
work on this specific issue. Quote. In two thousand and five,
with funding from Axon Enterprise Incorporated and the Arizona based Taser,
the Arizona based taser manufacturer, Ho wrote an article for
Police Magazine disputing claims from human rights groups that It's
stun guns were killing people. It has never been scientifically

(20:24):
proven that a taser has directly caused an industody death,
Ho wrote. He offered another explanation to these sudden deaths,
excited delirium a uh uh now, and keep keep keep
a pin in that it has never been scientifically proven
that a taser has directly caused an in custody death,
which we've heard before, right, you remember the other we

(20:46):
were talking about wet Lee. I think it was said
like they don't. We've never no evidence that these caused deaths.
Um keep that in mind because we'll be talking about
that a little bit later. We're still talking about how
for right now and over the next decade, Dr Hoe
joy into doctors Mash and Wetly in researching and popularizing
the term excited delirium. When interviewed by The Star Tribune,

(21:07):
doctor Hoe claimed that excited delirium is real, widespread, and deadly.
He claimed that his interest in researching it came from
a pure hearted desire to save lives and reduce the
threat of this totally real, deadly disease. He did not
initially acknowledge his financial relationship with Axon, but when Axon
was reached for comment, they cited doctor Hoe and there
are other pet doctors in order to claim quote, there

(21:29):
is no longer a true debate among knowledgeable medical professionals
on whether excited delirium syndrome is a valid diagnosis. So
though there's not a debate anymore, thank you Axon. Oh okay,
as we've already cited a number of knowledgeable medical professionals
who will argue that it is very much not a
settled debate. Um. We we've we've cited a lot of

(21:52):
those people. But considering the number of shill docs who
keep making claims like this, I feel the need to
keep quote encounter arguments. Dr Homer Vinter is a former
is the former chief physician of Riker's Island Jail in
New York City. He now works for a nonprofit that
studies healthcare in the criminal justice system. He does not
believe that excited delirium is a valid diagnosis. Quote, this

(22:14):
is not a medical diagnosis. I think there's still an
open question as to the scientific legitimacy of excited delirium. Now,
there are emergency medical specialists who do not work for
acts ON and believe there is some validity to the
excited delirium diagnosis. They tend to argue that if you
don't acknowledge this constellation of symptoms is real, how can

(22:34):
you expect police officers to recognize when someone might be
at risk of dying in custody because of it, to
which I might respond, the cop with the cop with
Derek Chauvin that day in Minneapolis recognized excited delirium and
George Floyd still died. It sure seems like it doesn't
help anyone stop deadly behavior. It just justifies it. Now.

(22:55):
One of the people who went to bat for Dr
Hoe in that article was Dr James Minor, Chief of
Medical Chief of Emergency Medicine at Hennepin County. Dr Miner
authored a taser research article with doctor Hoe. He does
not seem to work for Axon. I cannot find any
evidence that he is directly paid by Axon, but he's
still benefits financially from doctor hose relationship to the company.

(23:19):
Here's why quote Axon Enterprise retains ho is its contract
medical director, a job to which he dedicates thirty two
hours per month at hc MC. In exchange, Axon pays
the hospital about a hundred and forty thousand dollars per year.
Hose annual salary at Hennepin Healthcare is currently four hundred
and sixty thousand dollars. Hose position with Axon is not

(23:39):
disclosed on hc MC's website, so you see what's happening here.
As long as doctor Hoe is employed by Axon, Dr
Miner's hospital has a hundred and forty thousand less dollars
they need to find in their budget every year because
Axon pays that chunk of his salary. In two thousand six,
h CMC, the hospital they both at, lost forty nine

(24:01):
million dollars. In two thousands seventeen, they lost twenty nine
million dollars, So they are in in every penny counts
sort of situation. And Dr Minor could be argued to
benefit directly from doctor hose financial relationship with ax On
because that's less money he has to find in his
fucking budget and clearly his budget is tight, right. There

(24:22):
absolutely is an ongoing financial interest that this guy has
to even if he's not receiving money from Axon. Doctor
Hoe took ax On money for well over a decade,
which means the hospital would have gotten something like one
point four million dollars from the company. UH, and he
used his position during this time his position of prominence
within the hospital to defend both the ax On corporation

(24:43):
and cops who killed people. In two thousand seven, Ho
went to Las Vegas to defend a Nevada cop accused
of killing a man by tasting him repeatedly, even after
that man had been strapped to a gurney. A coroner's
jury determined that the taser had played a role in
that man's death. So a cop to he's is a
restrained man to death and a coroner's jury says, yeah,

(25:04):
the taser is part of why he died, and Taser says, oh,
we're not going to take that ship sitting down. This
gets back to what I was saying earlier, Right, Doctor
Jo is able to claim I can't think of a
single case where a taser was found to have killed somebody.
It's because whenever a taser is found to kill somebody,
Axon goes to fucking war. Right, That's why that is
the case. And they've got the money to throw at

(25:27):
it too, right, Yeah, of course they do. She cops
are buying a lot of tasers. Now. Dr Hoe was
not about to let that stand. In two thousand five,
he'd taken a course with the Las Vegas Police Department
on excited delirium, and in two thousand seven in court,
he cited symptoms of excited delirium to explain how the

(25:47):
man had died totally independent of being repeatedly tasted. The
judge ruled in favor of the police and axe On.
In two thousand eight, Axon hired Hoe is part of
their lawsuit against a medical examiner in Ohio who cited
tasers as a factor in three deaths, who argued that
the taser could not have killed any of those people,
claiming that excited delirium had caused death in all three cases.

(26:10):
The judge ruled again in favor of Axon and the
medical examiner was forced to remove any reference to taser
from the death records. In one of these cases, the
this exonerated a police officer who was being charged with murder.
So that's good, that's good ship. Yeah, it's it's so fun.

(26:36):
We're having a good time. So I I I imagine
that someone is I don't know, like it's weird. It's
it's time, I guess for an irrelevant uh fun fact,
uh you know, for any fans of Scrooge McDuck. Right,
you might automatically imagine the people in Axon swimming in

(26:58):
a vault of money. Uh, but it's actually really difficult,
especially if you want to get a dive with some air,
you're much more likely to hurt yourself. And so at
this point, Robert, it feels like, and I know we've
got we've got more to explore here, but it feels
almost like that kind of ridiculous injury is the only

(27:20):
consequence that these folks will face for these actions, right,
because it appears like business is booming with tasers. They're
not getting Yeah, no, taser is is fucking nail in
it these days. Um Yeah, it's not great. Um, And

(27:42):
we've we've been talking about how taser goes after and
like goes to war basically needs how a medical examiner's like, yeah,
obviously a taser killed this guy, or at least a
taser was a factor in his death. Right, Like, it's
also the fault of the cop tasing him, as opposed
to purely the taser, because in a lot of cases,
as a general rule, these cops are not using taste
is the way they're supposed to be used. Their repeatedly
tasing people at closer range and for longer periods of

(28:05):
time than they're supposed to. But Taser doesn't want to
deal with any of that bad press, which means defending
the cop entirely and removing the Tasers even being involved
in the death, rather than just being like they're using
our product improperly, you know, um, which is often the case. UM.
Here's another completely sociopathic passage from that Axon Investor document
I quoted in the last episode, quote continued aggressive litigation

(28:28):
defense to protect our brand equity. We have a simpled
a team of world class medical experts at our disposal
and hired additional internal legal resources during two thousand and
five to provide an efficient means of defending us against
numerous product liability lawsuits. We have had a total of
twelve cases dismissed or defense judgments in our favor. We
view a continued record of successful litigation defense is a
key factor for our long term growth, So it's good

(28:53):
for the bottom line. We gotta slander dead people, um,
and sue medical examine who dare to say that being
taste repeatedly is bad for you? Where did those medical
professionals get off with the audacity to do their jobs. Yeah, yeah,
to dare to dare to blame a device that electrocutes

(29:17):
people for their hearts stopping. Um, yes, fucking shameful. About
a hundred and fifty nine U S dollars per share.
It's up five point three percent today. Oh wow. Yeah,
so let's look at their five year Wow, their five
year trend line in a in two thousand and sixteen,
they were at like thirty dollars to share, and they're
they're down from their peak, which was um a little

(29:40):
earlier this year February, but they're at like, so that's
you know, five years they've like quadrupled in stock values.
So that's pretty good. Um, holy smokes. Yeah, let's looks.
Oh yeah, so they were at like a low point
in in two thousand so yeah, at around like two
thousand four, two thousand five, they're they're like they're like

(30:02):
nine sixty a share, um, and really they start to
soar after two thousands sixteen. That's like almost all of
their stock growth, that growth growth has happened after that point.
And they're only twenty eight years old as a company. Yeah. Yeah,
I don't know why I sometimes get that. I'm probably

(30:23):
not the only one. But I sometimes like if you
read a lot about um defense corporations and like the
bigger players in the industry, it's it's always easy or
attempting to assume like, oh, these dudes are old as
ship and they go back to you know, uh, the
world wars and so on, But that's not the case.

(30:45):
Twenty eight years old founded and obviously we're talking about
a new kind of thing with a taser, Like the
technology hasn't existed all that long. But yeah, these guys
are like their new to law enforcement. Um IF Even
if you're someone who believes cops should exist and there's
a benefit to having cops, there's a lot of evidence

(31:06):
that we're capable of maintaining cops are capable. Whatever you
think they're doing that's positive can be done without a
taser um or at least with a maybe with a
taser that's that accepts the deadliness of their product potentially
and works to mitigate it, rather than just suing anyone
who claims it's deadly, Like an ethical if you're going
to if there's any ethical way to do this, and

(31:28):
I do think there's ethical reasons for less than lethal weapons,
even though I don't believe in the police. I think
that there's reasons to have stuff that's not a fucking
gun that you could use against somebody that might stop
them from carrying out a violent act. An ethical company
where that to be a sort of thing that could
exist would be like, oh, God, they died in this
case because the person applied the taser for too long.

(31:49):
Let's build in like a guidance thing so that it
can't do so shocks, like, oh, maybe we have it
too hot, like you. There are ways in which this
could be more ethical than it currently is, but it
seems like mostly what they do is just sue anybody
who claims their products dangerous, which is cool, um and good, Yeah,
so good. During his time with Axon, doctor Hope Press

(32:11):
has provided expert consulting in more than twenty four lawsuits
in fourteen states and one Canadian province. In addition to
the hundred and forty thousand dollars per year Axon paid
of his salary, Hope builds four hundred dollars an hour
for his services to ax On and the different law
enforcement agencies. He defends. He's been hired to give more
than a hundred presentations around the world on Taser's wonderful technology.

(32:33):
In two thousand six, he lectured to French police. In
two thousand eleven, he gave presentations on arrest related deaths
in the use of force in Serbia and Turkey. In
two thousand and seventeen, he traveled to London and Ireland
to spread the gospel of tays. By two thousand nineteen,
doctor Hoe was an extremely valuable and prolific contributor to
the spread of Tasers worldwide. That year was the first

(32:54):
time his financial relationship with the company was revealed publicly
when The Star Tribune published a bomb l investigation titled
Where Law and Medicine Collide. Here's how that article opens up.
Depending on the day, Jeffrey hose work attire may include
a doctor's white coat or a badge and a forty
caliber glock with high capacity magazines. Hos Ho transitions between

(33:15):
head of Paramedics at HCMC, where he oversees the response
to tens of thousands of nine one one calls every year,
and a part time sheriff's deputy in rural Minnesota. He
also draws on his expertise and healthcare and law enforcement
for a third job. He is a paid advocate for
the Taser stun gun, one of the most popular police
weapons in North America. Hoose allegiances to medicine police and
collided last year when investigators from the Minneapolis Department of

(33:38):
Civil Rights discovered that police officers were urging paramedics to
sedate emotionally disturbed people in the field with the powerful
sedative ketamine. Some patients were then enrolled without their consent
and an hcmc C study on ketamine, on which Ho
was a lead researcher. Now, this is getting us a
little bit outside of tasers and excited delirium, but it's
a fucked up story and we're gonna talk about it. So,

(34:00):
starting in two thousand fourteen, researchers at HCMC, led by Ho,
started having paramedics responding to medical emergencies inject quote agitated
people with either ketamine or a control group sedative to
see which worked better. As noted in the quote above,
patients were not asked for consent, and we're only informed
afterwards of what had been done to them and that

(34:21):
they've been enrolled in a study. Now, medical ethics does
allow for patients to be drugged without consent under certain circumstances. Right.
Sometimes people are a danger to themselves and others, and
that is considered to be the best way to deal
with it. Right. If the situation is an emergency and
the risks of the medication are considered minimal, this can
be done. But that is not the case with ketamine

(34:42):
being administered in Hinnepin County. From a write up in Nature, quote,
thirty nine percent of subjects who received ketamine developed respiratory
problems that required the insertion of a breathing tube, compared
to only four percent of those who received the sedative
Hello paradol. The study also reported that ketamine sedated patients
much more quickly than how a pair at all did,
but that respiratory side effects were most likely to develop

(35:04):
and severely agitated patients who received ketamine, So there's significant
dangers to this. After three years of drugging agitated people
at random, the hc MC launched a second study of
ketamine use in non compliant patients. Four hundred and twenty
people were enrolled in this study. Although in role was
an odd term to use for people who are drugged

(35:24):
against their will, the way the study was supposed to
work was that all agitated patients admitted to the hospital
during the first six months of the year would be
dosed with ketamine. Well, everyone who was agitated and admitted
during the last six months of the year would receive
how low paradol either or a different sett The hospital
had to study had to shut the study down after
just six months, though, because a Star Tribune investigation publicized

(35:47):
a report from the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights. This
report alleged that rather than the study being conducted just
on patients admitted to the hospital, local cops had started
advising paramedics to drug troublesome patients, including people the police
had already physically restrained. Now the hospital devised the police. Yeah, yeah,
that's not good. Is it disturbing? Yeah? Cops are the

(36:12):
people who should determine when someone gets fucking ketamine, right,
because then then inherently the police who are not doctors,
with this one notable exception of doctor, oh, that puts
them in a supervisory or administrative role in this study,
does it not. You could argue that m hm oh,

(36:37):
but these guys aren't part of the studying necessarily. This
is just happening in the field, like the hospital gets
approved to do this on patients in the hospital, and
so this stuff becomes part of the toolkit paramedics are
carrying around, and cops find out about it, and they
just start having people drugged when they're having an issue
with somebody. Wow, that is it's pretty rad. That has

(36:57):
never happened. Yeah. Well, for every audi in the audience
today who was a big fan of recreational drugs and
is somehow not familiar with what I mean, is fun Yeah, yeah, well,
it's not the right circumstances there. We go very important
asterisk there. If you are a fan of recreational drug use, uh,

(37:19):
you probably don't want law enforcement calling your dosage or
you don't want to be hanging out with them. Uh.
And also I would argue, you know, when you're saying
in the right context there, Robert, you probably mean consensual ketamine, right, yes, yes, yeah, yeah.
Like the last time I did ketamine was in a
hotel in Los Angeles with a bunch of friends, um,

(37:41):
well like a friend in their co workers, and we
were all railing lines of ketamine off of the side
of a machete and having lovely conversations. And that was
a wonderful night. Um. We called it machete amine. Um.
But we all consented and none of us were being
restrained by police at the time, which I think both
of those facts were key to our enjoyment of the

(38:02):
machetamine that night. It's it was. It's a good way
to do ketamine. Um. I I I highly recommend it.
Uh theoretically, you know, theoretically, so um, hypothetically, hypothetically that
would be an enjoyable thing to do. And I should
note for legal purposes. H. C mc denies that police

(38:24):
ever directed paramedics in this way, but um, you can
decide whether or not you believe them. I think the
Star Tribunes reporting makes me question that. But you know what,
I don't question. Nothing says cool ranch like a mustard
gas cloud billowing across the fields of Flanders. Anyway, here's

(38:45):
some products. We're back. And I was just telling my
friends how while eighteen grand isn't enough to buy my integrity,
just giving me a pile of weapons is like if
the company that makes bear cats wants to give me
a bear cat, I will stop complaining about the police bearcats.

(39:05):
I'm telling you all that right now. My integrity is
the price of a free bear cat that I could
drive around town. Um, I'll do it. I'm not even
I don't even feel bad about it. You would use
it for good though, No, no, no, no, no, no,
I absolutely would not, but it would be it would

(39:28):
be fun. It would be fun. Um. There's a lot
of things you can do with a bearcat that people
would have trouble stopping you from doing. Um, So we
should probably get back to the episode. Yeah. Now. The
Star Tribune report on this Hennepin County Medical Center ketamine
study also revealed that in several cases, these involuntary ketamine
doses stopped patients hearts. Multiple people had to be resuscitated

(39:52):
at the hospital. And some of these stories are fucking horrifying.
Here's the Star Tribune. And remember Dr Hoe was one
of the lead researchers on this study. Good guy quote.
Body camera footage from one case showed a woman, after
being maced by police, asking for an asthma pump. The
draft report said, instead, a paramedic gave her an injection
of ketamine if she was having an asthma attack, Giving

(40:14):
ketamine actually helps patients, and we're doing a study for
agitation anyway, So I had to give her ketamine, the
unnamed paramedic told a police officer. According to the report,
after receiving ketamine, the woman's breathing stopped and medical staff
resuscitated her. According to the report, it is troubling that
the dictate of the study mentioned by the paramedics, it clears,
appears to have played a significant role in the decision
to administer ketamine. The reports authors wrote, I can tell you,

(40:38):
as someone who has had asthma and who has had
to deal with other people's asthma, the thing you do
is not just give them a bunch of fucking special
k you give them there in haler. You know, I'm
not a paramedic that that would be. That would be
my go to treatment crass is asthma medication as opposed

(40:59):
to a fuck load of ketamine that stops their heart.
I'm not a doctor again, none of us, none of us,
I think our doctors. But well, actually, like everybody, you
are reverend doctors. Sorry, I recognize, yes, I am not
a paramedic now no, yeah, but I feel like that's

(41:20):
a reasonable assumption there, Robert, that um that you give
someone asthma medication transpect and not ketamine yeah, not to
be a backseat first responder, you know, I know, but yeah, right,
but um, that seems like, yeah, it's just a weird

(41:42):
direction to take it. Like if someone is going into
a diabetic shock, right, then wouldn't your go to be
something like insulin? But again not a paramedical, not a paramedic.
But yeah, it wouldn't be it wouldn't be ketamine. Um,
it wouldn't be had a mean So, Thomas Hoseley, eighteen

(42:03):
years old, wound up enrolled in this study because he
had a seizure. His mom called and cops and paramedics
showed up. His mother insists that he was not combative
at all. Quote, he was not arguing. All he was
doing was crying for me because they wouldn't let me
be by him. Despite this, the police restrained him and
had paramedics shoot him up with special K. When his

(42:23):
mother saw him next, he was unconscious and intubated. In
all these cases, the victims were informed they'd been enrolled
in doctor Hoss study afterwards by letter. Sixty four doctors, bioethicists,
and academic researchers co signed a complaint against the h
c MC study. Michael Carome director of a health research
group and co signer of that complaint, explained quote, this

(42:45):
isn't even a close call. This is clearly a prospective
higher risk experiment. This is really just a colossive failure
of their program to protect human subjects. Dr Jeffrey Ho
did not see it that way. All available evidence suggests
he thinks that the costs of this study, which are
the dignity, bodily, autonomy, and health of its participants, were
minor compared to the prospective public health benefits. He told

(43:08):
The Star Tribune. I very much view my career as
an emergency medicine, law enforcement, and research as parallel pathways
to public safety. It is my life's work to develop
these areas of intersection for the benefit of public protection. Question,
M you got a question about that. Do you think
he believes that. I think he has to. I think

(43:28):
he knows at some level because he's not a dumb man,
right you don't. You don't have a resume like this guy.
If you're and you're not that successful at arguing in court,
if you're a dumb man. He's not a dumb man.
But I also think people are very good at knowing
on some level what they're doing is wrong and still
doing it because fucking money talks, baby. Yeah, and intelligence

(43:51):
also helps yea helps ration with rationalization. Yeah. Well, props
to his mental park core. Yeah, props to his mental
park core. UM. Now, I'm watching UM for All Mankind
right now, which is an alternate reality TV show about
what if the Russians had made it to the moon first,
and it kind of follows the American space race if
we lose the race to the Moon and like what
happens as a result of that. UM. One of the

(44:13):
characters in it is Werner von Braun, who was a
real guy. He was probably the reason we actually did
make it to the moon first. He was a brilliant
rocket scientist who also was a Nazi. He was a
member of the s s UM. He would argue that
it was forced upon him. I don't think that's a
valid and I think a lot of historical research suggests
it's not. UM. But he did he did what he

(44:34):
did because and he utilized slave labor. There were death
camps that provided labor. Thousands of labors died building his rockets,
which he wanted to used to explore space. But he
was willing to turn into weapons because it furthered his
rocket research. UM. And I think he would have justified
it if he'd ever really been called to account for it,
by saying, like, look, the importance of my research had

(44:57):
value for all of mankind, So even though people were
suffering in the immediate term, it was worth it for
the long term benefits of what I was doing. UM.
I don't think that justifies being a Nazi and utilizing
slave labor. Um. It just doesn't. Um. But you can,
if you're a smart person, you can always find a justification,

(45:18):
Like I will find a way to justify my partnership
with the company that makes bear cats so that I
can get a free bear cat to drive around town.
And can you imagine just getting up in the mountains
doing donuts and whippets and a bear cat That would
be so fucking rad shooting out the window, Oh my god.
Yeah yeah, and look at the interior. Really get the

(45:39):
covered cab option could live there though, overlanding and a
fucking bear cat sounds like a great time. Oh god, look,
bear cat people, I I have already admitted on air
I will sell my integrity for one free bear cat.
So let's let's make it happen. Yeah, it doesn't have
to be a Bearcat any any route aran's vehicle. Really,

(46:01):
I'll take like defense manufacturers, one of those big up
armored trucks they drive around Afghanistan and a rack. Just
send it here and I'll change my tune. You know.
That's it's it's that easy, people. I I support you
in this, you know, but like at this point, you know,
I think you really went hard on the Bearcat angle.
Like I think maybe we can maybe you can say

(46:21):
that you can be like, hey, I'm a man of integrity.
I'll sell my soul for for a rout clearing vehicle,
but it's gotta be bearcat, right, I'll sell my soul now,
I'm you know, I'm not I'm not particular. I will
sell my soul for any modern armored vehicle as long
as it's not like a b MP fucking Russian trash anyway,

(46:48):
or a humpy fuck Humpy's no, thank you. I've been
in a lot of them and they suck um. But
like a big one, it's gotta be real, fuck it.
It's gotta be like a like a like a like
a real monster of of an arm vehicle. And then
and then I'll sell I'll sell out, absolutely absolutely, Lockheed Martin,
we can make a lot of money together. Well, you
could make a lot of money and I could go

(47:10):
joy writing in an armored vehicle. Win win, Well not
for all Woden will die, but for me a win win.
So uh. The story about hc mc ces ketamine program
broke it right around the same time as the story
about doctor host cozy relationship with Axon. There was an
immediate outcry by the community and by some elected officials

(47:31):
in Minneapolis. H c MC's chief executive resigned over the
ketamine study. Doctor Hose relationship with Axon was a thorn
year problem. Publicly, the hospital stood by him, but the
Star Tribune revealed a recording of a private meeting doctor
ho head with a group of paramedics in which he
admitted the hospital had asked him to resign. He told them,
why would I resign? I didn't do anything wrong. He

(47:53):
blamed politics and an over zealous police oversight board for
the fact the fact that people were angry at him.
I'm sure I don't have to tell any of you
that I think that doctor ho is a grifting scumbag,
and any ethical society would be stripped of his medical
license and flung into the sun. I could rant about
him for a while, but it is time to move
on because there is much more fuccory afoot. But so

(48:13):
far we've discussed how excited delirium came about, how it's
used to explain away police murder, how taser hired experts
like doctor ho to blame deaths caused by their product
on excited delirium, and how they sue medical examiners who
rightfully blame their products for deaths and custody. But it
gets shadier than that. I want to quote now from
a Reuter's article which opens with yet another story of

(48:34):
a man being killed by a cop with a taser.
Quote with a police officer close behind, Israel hernandez Lock
ducked into an apartment building and dashed down the hall,
busting through a rear exit. He scrambled over an iron fence,
landing hard on a parked car, and sprinted across the
parking lot. Within seconds, officer Jorge Mercado caught up with him,
drew his taser, and fired a single shot to the chest.

(48:56):
The recent high school grad and aspiring art teacher collapsed
on the sidewalk in cardiac arrest. The chase lasted six minutes.
It was five twenty am on August six thirteen. At
six eighteen am, he was pronounced dead and by the way,
Israel Hernandez Locke was being chased by a cop because
he was spray painting ship. He got murdered for graffiti.

(49:16):
Four hours later, the Miami Beach Police Department received an
email from stunned gun manufacturer Taser International, so Israel dies
six eight teen am from a Taser shot to the chest.
Four hours later, Taser emails the police department. The message,
marked confidential and not previously reported, provided guidance on how
investigators should proceed, from collecting hair and nail samples to

(49:39):
recording the teen's body temperature and documenting his behavior before
he was stunned, and included a sample press released and
an evidence collection checklist. In bold letters marked timely and urgent,
the dispatch advised Miami's medical examiner to send the teen's
brain tissue for testing to Deborah Mash, a University of
Miami medical researcher. It did not mention Mash had been

(50:03):
paid by Taser to testify, and it's behalf and loss. Yeah,
that's right, that's fucking right. If a cop kills you
with the taser, they will send your fucking brain tissue
to the Axon Corporation or at least one of its
pet medical examiners. Holy ship. Yeah, so that's okay. So
when we say guidance, first off, that timeline is four

(50:25):
hours profoundly disturbing. Yeah. And then secondly, when we say guidance,
what do we that feels like guidance with air quotes around, Yeah,
because it feels like it's written kind of like a
man tag, Like they write a press release for you
and you just slot in the name of the officer
and the dead kid. You know. Oh man, um, it's

(50:48):
awesome as shit. It's so good. Everything I just read
in that excerpt is part of a total the total
package that acts On offers to law enforcement agencies. If
you taste some team to death, you're not on your own.
Axon will send you a ready made, fill in the
brank blank press release and they'll help you come up
with a way to blame the victim. Lawyer Todd Falzone,
who represented the hernandez Lock family in a liability suit, explains,

(51:11):
from the minute they find out someone dies. They're doing
everything they can behind the scenes to set up a
legal defense so the case goes away now. When questioned
about the Hernandez Lack case, the Miami Dade County Associate
Medical Examiner Mark Schumann told Reuters he was unaware that
Dr Mash was employed by Axon when he sent that
teenager's brain tissue to her lab for tests. When Reuters

(51:34):
reached out to Axon VP of Communications, Steve Tuttle told
them it was not the company's responsibility to inform Schuman
that they were advising him to send brain tissue to
one of their employees. They didn't think Dr Mash's relationship
with the company was something police needed to know either. Quote,
why would I tell them something that's a legal matter.
I'm not a lawyer. He said, Uh, fuck you, Steve,

(52:01):
you fucking pieces ship, you absolute goblet. Oh my god,
you soulless monster. Ah it fucking yeah. Tuttle went on
to describe Dr Mash as a quote respected independent expert.
Reuter's was able to show that she had received at

(52:21):
least twenty four thousand dollars from the corporation from two
thousand and five to two thousand nine. That's just a
four year period. We don't know the full amount that
she has been paid by Axon over the years for
her services. We don't even know that that's the full
amount from two thousand and five to do this at nine,
that's what they were able to verify. We do know
thanks to Reuters, who did a great job. It really
has been like a fucking uh pit bowl latched on

(52:44):
to this, this specific story about like the Tasers and
ax On. They've really done some incredible work on this
um and we know thanks to them that there have
been at least one thousand and five incidents in the
United States where people have died after being stunned with tasers.
When questioned about Taser's weird policy of inserting themselves into

(53:05):
active investigations over deaths and custody, Tittle told Reuters that
his company just wants to ensure investigators get quote, the
best available evidence in cases where people are killed or
hurt by their weapons. As he explained it, the scientific
information Axon passes on to examiners is just quote things
that an outside investigating agency needs to see. Coincidentally, one

(53:26):
of Axon's chief finding after all these years of sticking
their nose into investigations. Is that the overwhelming majority of
people who die after being taste are killed by underlying
health conditions, drug use, or some other police force besides
a taser. From Reuters quote. Though the company has warned
since two thousand nine that is shocked to the chest
can affect heart function, it says no one has died

(53:46):
from taser induced cardiac arrest. It asserts its weapons have
been a factor in just twenty four deaths, always as
a result of secondary injuries, such as hedge injuries from
falls after someone was stunned. In two thousand nine, the
American College of Emergency Physicians published a white paper on
excited delirium, which is quoted regularly by the FBI and
by guys like Dr Jeffrey Hoe and ladies like doctor

(54:08):
Deborah Mash when they need to blame deaths caused by
tasers or other excessive force on the victim. Incidentally, doctors
Howe and Mash were two of the authors of that
white paper. At least one of the other nineteen members
of the task force who wrote that white paper was
also a paid taser consultant. The paper described excited delirium
as quote a real syndrome of uncertain etiology or cause.

(54:31):
The white paper didn't Yeah, now, that white paper did
not note that three of its authors were paid employees
of ax On. This was justified by the fact that
it came out in two thousand nine, when disclosures were
not required for task forces assembled by the American College
of Emergency Physicians. They started requiring that two thousand eleven.

(54:52):
We just didn't require that at the time. It's not
a lapse of ethics or anything. No reason to re
examine this now. So far, everything I've gone over today
is pretty fucked up and infuriating. But guess what, it
gets worse because Axon also decided in the early odds
to try to preempt as many lawsuits against medical examiners

(55:12):
as possible by just buying up medical examiners like Dr
Deborah Mash Here's Reuters quote. Michael Graham, president of the
National Association of Medical Examiners in two thousand five, was
approached by Taser in two thousand seven, the chief medical
examiner for St. Louis and professor of pathology at St.
Louis University, agreed to be a paid Taser consultant and
still receives an annual stipend. He said Taser wanted to

(55:35):
educate medical examiners about the physiological effects of its weapons
and rebut criticism running contrary to the science, Graham said.
In two fourteen, the Medical Examiners Association hosted a big
meeting on tasers and stun guns. Graham presented at that meeting,
so did Mark Kroll, a University of Minnesota professor and
a member of Taser's corporate board since two thousand three.

(55:57):
Kroll did disclose his tie to the company me when
he told medical examiners that tasers satisfy quote all relevant
safety standards and advised them to this exclude the weapons
as potential causes of death. In two thousand eight, Mark
Kroll testified in a wrongful death suit and suggested that
tasers were like therapy for people suffering from excited delirium.

(56:19):
If you start exhibiting, Yeah, yeah, taser therapy because you're excited.
That's like, that's honestly like saying that that is that
is like saying dying is therapy for depression, except that
depression is real. Yes, yes, yes, I'm gonna read this

(56:41):
quote from Mark Kroll because in a in an episode
full of sociopathic ship. This might take the cake. This
is what he said in If you start exhibiting excited
delirium behavior and you are in the terminal throes of
death and you are so bizarre you can't be controlled
any place else, you will receive taser therapy. They need

(57:02):
to be brought under control so their lives can be saved.
Just a life saving. And I mean obviously in my
medical kid, I keep a taser right next to the tourniquet.
Sometimes you need the tourniquet. Sometimes you gotta taste people.
That's just medically. Yeah. At the end, Look, if you've
got ketamine in a taser, you're basically a hospital. Yeah,

(57:26):
you're walking hospital at that point. Yeah. So Kroll is
a bioelectricity scientist. In two thousand sixteen, he earned two
hundred and sixty seven thousand dollars from Taser and owned
one million dollars in company stock. In an email to Reuter's,
he insisted that his affiliation with the company did not

(57:47):
bias his research, explaining, due to this well known relationship,
I was motivated to be very careful, to be extremely
accurate and objective. Oh oh good, good, good. Uh so,
so in other news, it's like, uh, Fox calls new
hen house design a step forward and better overall for

(58:12):
the hens, right if we're using the tired kind of
this open air hen house. Really, Foxes are big fans
the wider doors really, when you think about it, are
more friendly for everyone, for everybody. Everybody benefits, and then
the chickens get more Fox therapy, right right, Fox therapy,

(58:33):
which is you know, according to uh, Fox Therapeutics International,
that's like a lead. Yes, Uh, this is unconscitable, man,
it's pretty bad. Right, So let's end by talking about
one more murder. I think this one is valuable to
discuss because it really brings together just every shady tactic

(58:56):
and shady professional we've discussed in our episodes so far.
In two thousand four, David Glausinski's mother called the police
because her son, a schizophrenic suffering from substance abuse, was
in the midst of a psychotic episode. She told one
he needed to be hospitalized. When the cops showed up,
he was standing in the street screaming incoherently while holding
a bible in a book about the Grateful Dead. Officers

(59:20):
tried to restrain him. Glausinski kicked and screamed the doc.
The cops took him to the ground, and one stunned
him nine times by applying a taser directly to his flesh.
He was handcuffed, his legs were zip tied, and a
two hundred and seventy pound officer pressed him to the
ground while another mazed him. David went into cardiac arrest
and died on the spot. His mom sued the cops

(59:42):
and axe on and you know what comes next from
Reuter's quote. Taser persuaded a judge to exclude a medical
examiner and pathologist with twenty five years experience whose testimony
was central to the family's case, arguing that it was unqualified, unsupported,
and unreliable. Backed by a half dozen experts, Taser asserted

(01:00:02):
that there was no medical certainty its guns shocks caused acidosis,
the death was natural and attributable to excited delirium. Taser
argued the company had helped from Suffolk County medical examiner.
The post was held then by Charles Whatley, the man
who had revived the excited delirium theory to explain Miami
cocaine deaths decades earlier. At Wetley's direction, the coroner on

(01:00:24):
the case. His deputy sent Glausinski's brain samples to Deborah
Mash at the University of Miami. Mash found evidence of
exhaustive mania, a form of excited delirium said to occur
when drugs are not present. In his autopsy report, the
coroner echoed mashes findings. The Glausinski families lawyers called the
concept of excited delirium a sham. The defense prevailed. In

(01:00:47):
two thousand thirteen, Judge William Waldyce missed Taser from the case,
finding no admissible evidence the stun gun killed Glausinski. Fucking hell,
it's pretty good. Good ship us rad. How much is
Big Taser? I feel like we can say big Taser now,
And ironically, how much is Big Taser paying the judge?

(01:01:08):
I don't know if they are, you know, I assume
they're paying a lot for the lawyers. I assume, you know,
there's a lot of shitty judges who are sympathetic to Taser.
And I don't know if they're paying the judge or
if they just know how to make the argument to
get Ship dismissed. I I don't know, I don't I'm
not gonna. I'm not gonna do what is legally slandered
to a judge without more evidence on that. Um, it's

(01:01:30):
possible that the the actual corruption here is just in
all of these paid experts, right, and the judge is
looking at all of these experts who are paid by
Taser and being like, well, of all these people are
saying the Taser couldn't have done it, the Taser must not.
I don't know. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not defending
the judge either. I just don't know enough about his specifics.
You're yeah, I mean, you're right, You're right. That's fair

(01:01:52):
because otherwise it gets a little too far into speculation.
But my friend, I think you've proven a solid case
that this. I know it's very stereotypical on the nose
for me to be the one who says this, But
it's kind of a conspiracy, is it not? Call it
a conspiracy? Yeah? Ben, Ben thinking something's a conspiracy? What

(01:02:16):
this strange conspiracy? Some way? Call that's all I'm saying.
The pieces are there. I'm not saying it's a cake yet.
But there's some flour, there's some sugar. There's a ship
ton of people who could have been alive. Most importantly,
I think, ye, well that's that's that's the episode. Then

(01:02:40):
that's the episode. Then you've got some plugs that you
like to plug at this exact moment in time, drop
down in the pie zone baby. So yes, uh uh.
If you haven't listened, I'm gonna do a weird reverse plug.
If you haven't listened to it could happen here somehow.
Please check it out. If you'd like to hear more

(01:03:02):
about critical theory, apply to allegations of corruption and conspiracy,
checkout stuff they don't want you to know. And uh,
if you'd like to hear about ridiculous history, because there's
a lot of it. Uh, then check us out at
ridiculous History. That's that's that's it for me. This is
gonna stay with me. You know, I appreciate that. I
appreciate that we as a two parter, I think, uh

(01:03:27):
me bad and not cool. Yeah, yep, anyway, that's gonna
do it for all of us here at Behind the
Bastards for the week until next week. I don't know
Dr Jeffrey hose home address it. I'm soph he's giving me,
but I might be committing a felony sign. Okay, well

(01:03:50):
that's just a joke for legal purposes. Also, I don't
actually I don't actually know his address, so nor would
know what I suggest anything. Unfortunately, really in the episode over,
yeah we have we have to end this now, all right,

(01:04:13):
have a good week or be very angry or both.
M