At least 17 people died in Florida after medics injected sedatives during encounters with police
At least 17 people died in Florida over a decade following a physical encounter with police during which medical personnel also injected them with a powerful sedative, an investigation led by The Associated Press has found.
Three of the fatal incidents occurred in Orlando. Others were reported across the state, from Tallahassee to Tampa to West Palm Beach. Two incidents involved drugs administered by Miami-Dade Fire Rescue paramedics.
The deaths were among more than 1,000 that AP’s investigation documented across the United States of people who died after officers used, not their guns, but physical force or weapons such as Tasers that — like sedatives — are not meant to kill. Medical officials said police force caused or contributed to about half of all deaths.
It was impossible for the AP to determine the role injections may have played in many of the 94 deaths involving sedation that reporters found nationally during the investigation’s 2012-2021 timeframe. Few of those deaths were attributed to the sedation and authorities rarely investigated whether injections were appropriate, focusing more often on the use of force by police and the other drugs in people’s systems.