Family call for inquiry into Hyde's death
Amy Woolvett
THE COAST GUARD
NovaNewsNow.com
Howard Hyde’s family is calling for a full public inquiry after his death in police custody some 30 hours after being Tasered.
Hyde, who suffered from psychotic schizophrenia, was arrested on a spousal assault complaint.
While in police custody Hyde attempted to flee police and was Tasered as they attempted to bring him back under control.
“Howard was in the custody of the judicial system for almost 30 hours when he was psychotic and ill,” said Hyde’s brother-in-law Dr. Hunter Blair. “He was in the wrong place and should have been in a hospital.”
“We are trying to find out why he was not in a psychiatric hospital being treated properly,” said Dr. Blair. “If he had been he would not have developed the acute thing that killed him.”
According to medical documents obtained by Hyde’s sister Joanna Hyde, he was brought to the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre for six hours and released into police custody.
Dr. Blair stated that the hospital let him go but with a provision that if the court did not send him to the forensic unit for psychiatric evaluation the police were to bring him back to the emergency room.
“I suspect that the doctor thought he was going straight from the hospital to the courts,” said Dr. Blair. He added that Hyde was released at 9:20 a.m. and his court appearance was not until 4:00 p.m.
He then went from the court to the correctional centre and died on Nov. 22. after struggling with jail guards at the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility in Dartmouth.
Dr. Blair does not believe Hyde’s death was a result of the Taser.
“I’m guessing that he died from a condition called excited delirium,” he explained. “The cause of death for people with severe psychotic illnesses.”
Excited delirium was the cause of death of Digby man, Paul Sheldon Saulnier who died shortly after being Tasered.
It is a controversial term used to explain deaths of individuals in police custody when the person is highly agitated. There is also a controversial link between excited delirium deaths and the use of Tasers.
“Howard was terrified of policemen,” said Dr. Blair, “so he was fleeing for his life. This is how he thought, he was ill so his perception of what these men were trying to do to him was to hurt him.”
“The Taser may have frightened him,” continued Dr. Blair, “which would have put him in an even more psychotic state…just pushing him ever closer to his excited delirium.”
Dr. Blair said that Hyde was not taking his medication at the time.
“Howard on his medication wouldn’t dream of attacking anybody,” he said.
Carla Grant a communications advisor for the Department of Justice said that they could not comment yet on the possibility of a public inquiry.
“It would be premature at this time,” she explained. “We are still awaiting the RCMP investigation report and the Chief Medical Examiners report.”
Dr. Blair understands it might take awhile to get the results back from the examiner but knows the family will not be privy to the police report.
“The answer should be available to the public,” he said. “This was an avoidable death that occurred in the hands of the provincial justice system.”
by Amy Woolvett 
Excited-Delirium Dotcom
Comment online since March 14th 2008Let's think about it. If a taser (such as the Taser X26 for example) was capable of causing a death, then what exactly would the evidence look like?
Would it result in a molten arc of burnt flesh inside the dead body? No, the X26 doesn't have that much power.
Would it leave carbon tracks inside the body like from lightning or power lines? Nope.
What if the X26 taser was just on the risky edge of being dangerous? So what would a taser death look like? Would there be anything to see? Anything to detect? Any smell of burnt flesh? Anything to document? Any evidence at all? Nope.
Perhaps the ONLY evidence would be the combination of the following characteristics:
1) Victim was tasered (especially across the chest or similar).
2) Victim is dead (within a reasonable period of time, allowing for the possibility of induced irregular heartbeats).
3) There is nothing else to explain the death, no physical signs of any other cause.
A reasonable person might conclude that the absence of clear physical evidence as to the cause of death in such cases is actually very strong evidence in itself.
I'd like to see THIS approach replace the brochure about "Excited Delirium" that Taser sent to every coroner and medical examiner that they could find. At the very least, it is worth considering...
And if there is a pre-existing medical condition, then please review the 'Thin Skull' legal doctrine. In those cases you could use the phrase 'contributing factor' for the pre-existing medical condition.
www.Excited-Delirium.com