ROCHESTER, N.Y. — As new information continues to come to light in the investigation of the death of Daniel Prude, there is increasing discussion surrounding the syndrome called excited delirium.

In general, there's also an effort to make it a larger part of police training.

"Cops need to recognize the excited delirium cases and have training on that," said Chuck Haggard of the National Law Enforcement Training Center.

The medical examiner's office ruled that excited delirium was a contributing factor when Daniel Prude encountered police on March 23, 2020.

It's something Haggard has come across many times during his decades-long law enforcement career.

"So in the case of excited delirium, we actually save a whole lot more people. These in-custody deaths are high profile, but they're actually not the norm," said Haggard.

Haggard is an instructor who teaches officers about excited delirium.

"There's all kinds of things that could be happening with this syndrome. One of the worst is hyperthermia," said Haggard.

Experts say a person coping with excited delirium would be described as potentially agitated, aggressive, hallucinating, under acute distress, and suffering hyperthermia, which is an abnormally high body temperature. 

"So PCP can cause in some people excited delirium," said an EMS worker.

Haggard says it poses an extreme risk to the person struggling, to the public, and to police who may respond. But he says they must be helped.

"Eventually they will die if you let them," Haggard said.

So how do you train officers to deal with something like this?

"They have to have good use of force training on if and what force to use and then recognition of excited delirium for what it is and then you have to have kind of a team approach because you're going to have to get the medics involved very, very quickly," said Haggard.

Use of force is a hot-button issue, but Haggard defends it in some situations, including sometimes with excited delirium.

"Sometimes a judicious, reasonable use of police force accelerates the medical intervention for that person and is what saves their life. There's no way around that," he said.

"Excited delirium is accepted by medical professionals and requires an immediate and coordinated response," said New York Attorney General Letitia James.

James is calling for excited delirium training following the grand jury decision not to indict the Rochester police officers involved in the Prude case.

"All police officers, emergency dispatch providers, and EMTs must be trained to recognize the symptoms and trained to respond to it as the serious medical emergency it is," James said.

Haggard supports the idea of more training.