MINNEAPOLIS — The Minneapolis Police Department instructed officers to ignore a watchdog report published by the city's civil rights division in 2018 that found several cases of police inappropriately asking paramedics to sedate uncooperative people during emergency calls, according to court testimony from the police department's former training commander.
At the federal trial of three former Minneapolis officers Monday, a defense attorney asked Minneapolis Police Inspector Katie Blackwell about a PowerPoint slideshow on "excited delirium," a controversial diagnosis that usually refers to a person experiencing a potentially fatal state of agitation. The training slideshow cited a draft of a report by the Minneapolis Office of Police Conduct Review critical of police asking paramedics to sedate people. But a footnote on slideshow dismissed the findings as a "reckless use of anecdotes" that will "prevent the saving of lives."
"What you train these officers is this draft report is wrong and uninformed?" asked Robert Paule, attorney for former officer Tou Thao.
