Fatal police encounters have been on the rise in Wisconsin, with police departments on track this year to exceed the record of 26 deaths set in 2017, the Wisconsin Watch reports. Notably, the state’s Department of Justice (DOJ) has excluded many non-shooting incidents from their tracking of police-related deaths. Justin Feldman, Principal Research Scientist at CPE, calls out factors not mentioned in official documents that may have contributed to the death of Kaukauna resident Eric VanSyoc in October 2023: that “Officers…sat on [VanSyoc’s] back for six minutes,” after he was Tasered and before he was injected with ketamine. He later died at the hospital.
“It’s been well known for many decades that you’re not supposed to keep people lying on their stomach,” said Justin Feldman, a social epidemiologist at Harvard University and researcher with the Center for Policing Equity. “You’re supposed to, at minimum, put them on their side.”
Read the full article at Wisconsin Public Radio.