Oh, and if they are having problems with their blood sugar, they will be argumentive and even combative. It is difficult to tell. Cops are generally not taught about this, at least I never was, I had to learn it through experience.
I just remembered about a month ago a barbershop owner was down on the floor, low blood sugar. I waited till rescue got there. He started fighting with the rescue squad and I had to hold him down until they gave him treatment. He was back on his feet in a few minutes.
He could probably get some Shister to sue me for holding him down.
That's only one possibility. The experiences I've had with diabetics have been ones where the person was totally nonresponsive to the point where they couldn't walk or speak. Very scary stuff the first time you see it, but you'd never mistake that person for a threat. It sounds like this woman was in that kind of state when the officer tasered her.
I'm a nobody and I've known about the effects of blood sugar on a persons actions for at least the last 15 years. There is no excuse for any professional person to not know about Diabetic reactions.
My middle daughter had chronic problems when she first started school. Around late morning she would become easily upset, angry, and uncooperative. The school wanted to give her Ritalin, but I pulled her out and homeschooled her instead.
We finally figured out she had a chronic hypoglycemic condition (diabetes runs in my wife's side of the family). If she's allowed a high-carb breakfast, her blood sugar spike, and then crash, and when it crashed she would sometimes go nuts. She would start crying hysterically, get very angry, be repeating the same phrase over and over like a lunatic. The only way to deal with it was to get a little sugar into her somehow (fruit juice or soda), then follow it up with a high-protein meal to level out her blood sugar.
EMTs carry little packets of some jelly-like high-glucose stuff they can put into the mouth of someone having a hypoglycemic attack. If blood sugar is allowed to drop too low and the person goes unconscious, brain damage can ensue as the brain cells are starved of glucose and start to die.
Current EMT training includes procedures for identifying symptoms. Since cops are generally first on the scene when someone is in (or causing) trouble, it seems like a good idea for police to have some basic training in this area, so they don't wind up killing too many diabetics
Their bodies are also throwing off ketones like a SOB, so their breath smells like acetone...or alcohol if you're not picky.
I don't know about you Cap'n, but the first thing they taught us as first responders is many a diabetic has died in the drunk tank; you'd think the message would have gotten around by now.