The suspect's boyfriend described her to me and my partner as looking like the girl from the movie The Ring (a small woman with hair covering part of her face). So it was eerie when we checked the backyard after the boyfriend said she wouldn’t have ran too far, only to find her sitting up against the outside garage wall in the grass with her long straight wet hair. I started worrying if she really was the girl—but I didn’t remember watching, or even receiving, a weird videotape in the mail.
The truth: She and her boyfriend were both addicts—they were meth users who had recently transitioned to “bath salts” and she was threatening suicide. She was taken to the hospital based on her statements and the fact that she had mutilated her arms and abdomen with hundreds of little razor blade cuts.
Bath Salts?
I had heard about them before but it was the first time I’d encountered them on a call. Oh, I’d been involved in a vehicle chase with a suspect under the influence of bath salts, who had run from police with several little kids in the car unbeknownst to us. But the threatened suicide call and several events since, piqued my interest in bath salts and officer safety.
Are these bath salts for your bath? Ah, no. These 50-milligram packets sell for $25–50 and are marketed under names such as Vanilla Sky, White Rush and Ivory Wave. These chemicals are snorted, smoked or injected to produce the effects similar to methamphetamine, but with more propensity for delusions and hallucinations. These chemicals are highly addictive and leave the user with feelings of paranoia for as long as a few months after use.
The Drug Enforcement Administration has recently (Sept. 7, 2011) issued a nationwide ban on bath salts and the chemicals mephedrone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone, or MDPV. Mephedrone has, according to experts, similar effects to Cathinone—the active chemical in Khat, which is chewed by users in Africa. The one-year emergency ban will take effect on Oct. 7, 2011 and will involve the FDA investigating if these drugs are legitimate. My state, Ohio, has recently outlawed bath salts, as have 28 other states, but they're still available on the Internet (and from some head shops, tattoo parlors and the like).
Subjects on Bath Salts
In the early days of my LE career, we dealt with PCP and the superhuman strength its users possessed, as well as the hallucinations they might experience. I remember one case in which an officer on the west coast was attacked by a subject under the influence of PCP. The subject pulled a street sign from the ground and attacked the officer. Then ripped the shotgun from the officer’s patrol car—mount and all—and killed the officer after he loaded and fired the gun.
To get an idea of what you might be dealing with, simply magnify the effects of other stimulants or hallucinogens that subjects use to understand what a subject using bath salts may be like. Here are some examples.
- A subject on bath salts jumps from a third-story window fracturing his leg only to giggle about it to a responding officer.
- A woman calls police about a man armed with a rifle in her basement. When officers search the house and declare it clear she points to an empty chair and states, “He’s right there!”
- A subject on bath salts experiences excited delirium. He takes off all his clothing and begins running naked through the streets, only to be controlled by local police.
- Police respond to a disturbance call only to find a man swinging a pipe at flying bats that he’s hallucinated as tormenting him.
- A subject on bath salts assaults a police officer attempting to control him in a hospital emergency room. He disarms the officer of his baton by putting the weapon through a wall and then attempts to escape. Two nurses and one doctor are able to tackle and control the subject.
- On one recent night, a local urban hospital had five emergency room patients for overdosing on bath salts.
- As I was working on this article, an officer from my agency was assaulted by a suspect on bath salts. Although I haven’t completed a full debrief, fortunately the officer wasn’t seriously injured. It was, however, a violent affair with the suspect pulling out the Taser probes and that physical force was necessary to control him.
Officer Safety Recommendations
- Distance is your friend. Suspects under the influence of bath salts may be paranoid or hallucinating. Give them more room than a normal suspect (more than six feet). Only penetrate the reactionary gap when you’re prepared to encounter resistance.
- Look for warning signs, such as bath salts wrappers, small sections of aluminum foil (used to smoke the drugs), syringes, etc.
- Ask prior to searching. Recently my patrol partner and I dealt with a subject that was obviously a meth head. Prior to searching him (he was placed under arrest for an outstanding warrant), I asked him if he had any contraband, specifically needles, on his person. He admitted that he had a syringe secretly in his shoe. Considering the guy had scabs all over his face and arms, the prospect of getting stuck with a syringe wasn’t appealing. We retrieved the needle, thanked him for his candor and charged him with its possession.
- The only difference between homicide and suicide is target. Bath salts have been linked to suicide in cases throughout the U.S. If any paranoid person on bath salts is threatening suicide, what makes you think they won’t first attempt to take you out with a knife or gun before they kill themselves?
- If force is necessary, have enough officers present, have EMS standing by, make a quick plan and use remote controls, such as the Taser, to take custody of the person. Bath salts users may be experiencing the same excited delirium state that cocaine or meth users do, putting them at risk for sudden in-custody death. Controlling them quickly and reducing their physical resistance and exertion, somewhat reduces the likelihood of sudden cardiac-related death. EMS should transport the subject—never a patrol wagon—to the emergency room, not the local jail (who probably won’t take them anyway).
- If you suspect bath salts overdose or use, relay that information to EMS and ER personnel. At this time, there’s no toxicology screen available for bath salts (which makes this drug attractive to people who are regularly tested, such as persons on probation or parole).
The Federal government through the Drug Enforcement Administration has certainly done the right thing in this emergency ban. Legislation is pending to make mephedrone, methylenedioxypyrovalerone, and MDPV Schedule I drugs like Heroin. For LE officers, we hope such legislation is successful. Designer drugs such as bath salts and synthetic Marijuana ("potpourri" drugs such as K2) are the wave of the future for LE. Like the LSD, PCP and whatever else some clan lab chemist concocted before or since and the subjects using them will continue to pose a threat to officers responding to an overdose situation or a myriad of other calls.
As always, the educated, aware, skilled and decisive street cop is the best means to stop and control a suicidal, or otherwise, violent subject under the influence. Study, train, plan and prepare to meet these potentially deadly emerging threats.