Police investigate "euthanasia" deaths

Deaths in German police custody.

BACKGROUND According to the ministries of the interior of all German federal states, a total of 128 persons died in police custody between 1993 and 2003. METHODS An inquiry to the forensic university institutes and regional court doctors showed that, within this period, post mortems were conducted in 75 of these cases. We were able to include 60 of these 75 cases in our evaluation and deficie...

Police Killings and Police Deaths Are Public Health Data and Can Be Counted

Nancy Krieger and colleagues argue that law-enforcement-related deaths in the United States should be treated as notifiable conditions, which would allow public health departments to report these data in real-time.

Physician-assisted deaths under the euthanasia law in Belgium: a population-based survey.

BACKGROUND Legalization of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide has been heavily debated in many countries. To help inform this debate, we describe the practices of euthanasia and assisted suicide, and the use of life-ending drugs without an explicit request from the patient, in Flanders, Belgium, where euthanasia is legal. METHODS We mailed a questionnaire regarding the use of life-endi...

Police in Israel launch investigation into deaths of babies given formula milk.

Indigenous deaths associated with police contact in Australia: Event stages and lessons for prevention

This paper analyses factors involved in Indigenous deaths associated with police contact in Australia since the Royal Commission of Inquiry, with a view to identifying possible points of prevention. Coronial reports were collected of 98 cases of Indigenous deaths, occurring in police custody or during custody-related operations between 1992 and 2008. Cases were content analysed for individual a...