New study underscores deadly restraints, with African Americans overrepresented. Systemic abuse is rooted in psychiatric racial profiling and eugenics, watchdog says. Calls for ban of coercive restraint practices.

LOS ANGELES - May 5, 2025 - PRLog -- With May being Mental Health Month, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) is spotlighting a disturbing new study published in the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, titled "I Can't Breathe" – A Study of Civil Litigated Cases on Prone Restraint Deaths. The review analyzed 229 fatal police restraint cases from 2010 to 2019. Of those where race was reported, 38% of the victims were African American. In 58% of cases, death occurred within five minutes of restraint; more than 20% of victims were recorded gasping, "I can't breathe"—a hallmark of lethal respiratory failure.[1]

The mental health watchdog warns that such deaths are rooted in eugenic ideologies that historically promoted coercion under the guise of control. The disproportionate representation of African Americans in restraint-related deaths reflects entrenched psychiatric and psychological racism—pseudoscientific theories that falsely declared Black inferiority and continue to influence profiling today.

This coercive culture is echoed in "warrior-style" or "killology" law enforcement training developed by a psychology professor 20 years ago that promotes a "kill or be killed" mindset. It conditions officers to respond with deadly force. As Mother Jones reported, such training "often runs the risk of the use of unnecessary, and sometimes, fatal force."[2]

Such force reflects a broader, systemic pattern: racial profiling and the use of physical and chemical restraints, disproportionately on African Americans. A 2017 New York Law School Journal report confirmed: "Behavior by African-Americans is more often interpreted as 'dangerous' than identical behavior by whites," and they are more likely to be labeled with psychiatric conduct disorders.[3]

These injustices trace back to the slave era.  Benjamin Rush, dubbed the "father of American psychiatry," claimed Blacks suffered from "Negritude"—a disease curable only by whitening their skin. His protégé, Dr. Samuel Cartwright, fabricated the diagnosis "Drapetomania" to explain why slaves tried to escape, advocating that "whipping the devil out of them" was therapeutic.[4] Myths that Blacks were "more durable to pain" persist today, known as Black hardiness," stereotypes that influence restraint and drugging.

CCHR highlights the enduring racism embedded in psychiatric practice:

• African Americans are 13.5% of the U.S. population, yet account for 33.6% of schizophrenia and 21.4% of ADHD diagnoses.[5]
• Among children: 28% of Black youth are labeled with conduct disorder, and 27.4% with oppositional defiant disorder—despite the lack of biological tests for any of these.
• In emergency rooms, Black patients are 63% more likely to be chemically restrained than whites.[6]
• Between 2012–2019, Black psychiatric inpatients were 85% more likely to be restrained than whites.[7]
• African Americans suffer longer and more frequent restraints and accounted for 22% of restraint-related deaths across treatment facilities.[8]

• Ja'Ceon Terry, 7 – restrained and died of asphyxiation.
• Cornelius Frederick, 16 – restrained for throwing a sandwich; died after gasping "I can't breathe."
• Jeremiah Flemming, 15 – restrained, lost consciousness and died.
• Omega Leach, 17 – forced face-down, suffered fatal injuries.
• Roshelle Clayborne, 16 – suffocated.
• Andrew McClain, 11 – died after being restrained for minor behavior.

• The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture found non-consensual psychiatric interventions "may well amount to torture."[12]
• The 2023 WHO and UN Human Rights Office Guidance on Mental Health calls for an end to involuntary hospitalization, forced drugging, electroshock, and restraint—stating unequivocally: "The use of any coercive measure in all mental health services is prohibited."[13]