The following column is the opinion and analysis of the writer.
On April 21, 2020, Mrs. Ingram placed a 911 call in which she expressed fear of her adult grandson, Carlos Adrian Ingram-Lopez, who was staying at her house. She used words including “crazy,” “violence,” and “naked” to describe his behavior. She tried to leave her house but he prevented her.
Three police officers arrived and subdued Ingram-Lopez. Ingram-Lopez died in police custody approximately 15 minutes after the police arrived on the scene. The autopsy report stated, “… the cause of death is ascribed to sudden cardiac arrest in the setting of acute cocaine intoxication and physical restraint with cardiac left ventricular hypertrophy as a significant contributing condition.”
The incident was finally made public almost two months later and the Tucson Sentinel broke the story on June 23, 2020. It made national news.
The revelation that a man died in police custody in April but the fact was not made public until June was embarrassing for Police Chief Chris Magnus. When he offered his resignation, the more naive among us saw it as a stand-up guy taking responsibility — certainly plausible — but others saw a savvy politician who knew how to get out in front of an issue and control it. Had the offer not been made, there might have been ongoing questions, maybe some poking around, maybe some wondered to what degree he was involved, but, all moot now.
There was also the fact that the three responding officers were initially cleared to return to duty, which they did until the news broke. Magnus quickly assigned another team to reinvestigate the incident. Within a few days, they returned recommendations to terminate the three responding officers.
Good job of damage control by Magnus.
Council member Lane Santa Cruz accused the officers involved in the arrest of killing Ingram-Lopez. She told NBC News, “Adrian was a young Latino father who, in his final moments, pleaded for water, and cried out for his nana.”
She could have just as easily said, “Adrian was a young Latino father who was in a state of excited delirium and upset and distressed his nana so much she called police.”
Neither statement tells the whole story, but one does support the narrative that police are callous murderers of Latinos, and it makes the news.
There is an aspect of the case which has not been widely reported, but seems to be important to the experts. Both the investigating team and experts interviewed by KOLD News 13 cited the failure of the arresting officers to transition to an emergency medical action plan once Ingram-Lopez was subdued, stating that their training indicated that Ingram-Lopez was in a state of excited delirium. The investigator’s report states, “Mr. Ingram-Lopez was naked, sweating, speaking gibberish, hallucinating and showing all the signs of excited delirium. This was never discussed on scene or considered.”
The National Institutes of Health describes “excited delirium” as follows: Excited (or agitated) delirium is characterized by agitation, aggression, acute distress and sudden death, often in the pre-hospital care setting. It is typically associated with the use of drugs that alter dopamine processing, hyperthermia, and, most notably, sometimes with death of the affected person in the custody of law enforcement.
Can some in the news media be faulted for focusing on that which supports a political narrative rather than covering all the relevant facts in the case, the state of excited delirium being an example?
In the end, we have a chief of police focusing on damage control, a council member focusing on political gain and reporting through a lens of universal police brutality.
Well done everyone.
