ROID RAGE!

Oscar Pistorius - Image courtesy of Oakley

Amid the furor over the alleged steroid use by superstar athletes like Oscar Pistorius, or the proved use by baseball's Jose Canseco and Jason Giambi, another story has been revealed in small towns and big cities across America - Cops on steroids!

From New York City to Okla police departments are investigating a growing number of incidents involving uniformed police officers who are using steroids to build beefy, muscular physiques.

But there is an even greater problem: violent aggressive behavior, a common side effect of steroids can contribute to police brutality - even murder!

James Batsel IV was a police officer in Riverdale, a suburb of Atlanta.  In 1993 he joined a group of police officers, who in addition to bulking up on steroids, burglarised stores and nightclubs in the Atlanta area.

During one of those burglaries, Batsel shot and killed a nightclub owner.  In his defence, Batsel blamed the murder on the steroids he was using.  Batsel, now serving a life sentence for murder at Hays State Prison in Georgia, refused an interview request from ABCNews.com. But his father, James Batsel III, said, "The police force that he was on was rampant with it."

Batsel also described the effect steroids had on his son's disposition, causing him to fly into a violent rage for no reason.  "He had a temper you would not believe," Batsel's father said. "He had a dog that he just loved - and he took that dog out and shot it."

A Nationwide Epidemic of Abuse

Batsel's use of steroids is not a rare case. In precinct houses and sheriff's departments nationwide, officers are being investigated, disciplined, discharged or arrested for possessing or using steroids:

Michael Tweedy, a former police officer in Petersburg, Va., was sentenced in April for repeatedly stomping a man in the head while he lay on the ground choking on his own blood. In court testimony, steroid use was cited as a contributing factor to his violent behavior.  Full story; http://abcnews.go.com/Health/US/story?id=775659&page=1

Anabolic steroids technically known as anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS), have been used by men and women in many different kinds of professional sports to attain a competitive edge or to assist in recovery from injury.  Such use is prohibited by the rules of the governing bodies of most sports. 

From the mid-1980s onward, the media reported "Roid-Rage" as a side-effect of AAS.

It's been reported that Oscar Pistorius my have been taking some form of steriod and that he may have encountered a blight of Roid-Rage as often has been proved to have been the case.

Miss Steenkamp's brother Adam, 36, called for the truth, telling reporters that; "...the only person left alive who can say what happened is Pistorius.

Cartoon: A graphic cartoon strip has been published depicting the last moments before Oscar Pistorius allegedly shot his girlfriend dead

Cartoon: A graphic cartoon strip has been published depicting the last moments before Oscar Pistorius allegedly shot his girlfriend dead

It was revealed that steroids were reportedly found at Blade Runner's luxury home where he is accused of murdering his girlfriend.

Police are investigating if Pistorius may have shot Miss Steenkamp in a fit of so-called 'steroid rage' - an explosion of aggression caused by performance-boosting steroids.

'Steroid drugs were found at Pistorius’s home together with evidence of heavy drinking. That’s why police have specifically ordered that he be tested for steroids,' a source told The Sun newspaper. 

The South African Police Service refused to respond to the claim, but sources close to the investigation had previously told a local paper that the steroid rage was one line of enquiry and that the star's blood was being tested for drugs.

South African police are investigating whether Oscar Pistorius beat his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp unconscious with a cricket bat before shooting her after a bloodied bat was reportedly found at his home

US Army Sergeant's Afghan Massacre Defense: "The steroids made me do it"

The U.S. Army charged Staff Sergeant Robert Bales with steroid and alcohol abuse as the service filed additional charges against the alleged killer of Afghan civilians.  The new charges include two counts of wrongfully possessing and using steroids and one of wrongfully consuming alcohol while deployed, according to a statement by the Army.
Bales is being held in the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, awaiting trial for the March shootings that roiled U.S.-Afghan relations. An attorney for the solider indicated his defense may turn in part on whether he used steroids, and who may have supplied them. Full story: http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/anabolic-zone/164897-us-army-serg...

Craig Titus on trial for Murder - Bodybuilding, Rage, Anabolic Steroids, Murder & the David Bieber Steroid Murders!

“He got even bigger and stronger than he already was.”

“When I went over to his house, it was full of swimming trophies!”

Mix all of this in with murder, a dramatic title such as “Rage on the Run”, deliver it at the height of steroids’ notoriety and you’ve got yourself a compelling, interest-peaking television program. But 48 Hours Mystery isn’t the only news outlet trying to attach steroids to the subject of murder. Just check some of the news coverage on world famous bodybuilders Craig Titus and his wife Kelly Ryan lately.

As the facts go, the couple was arrested over a month ago for the alleged slaying of their former personal live-in assistant Melissa James. James’ charred body was found in the trunk of Ryan’s abandoned Jaguar car outside of Las Vegas. It is believed that she was killed by asphyxiation before the Jaguar was set on fire near a remote desert highway.

Both Titus and Ryan are facing murder charges as well as kidnapping charges (evidence has suggested that they used a stun gun and morphine to subdue their assistant). An alleged accomplice and workout partner of Titus, Anthony Gross, is facing an accessory to murder charge along with a third-degree arson charge.

James, who moved to Las Vegas to help Titus and Ryan start a clothing line, was rumored to have been involved in an affair with Titus. It was also reported that Ryan found out that James was embezzling money from her accounts and kicked Melissa out of her house. However, these are only statements made by Titus and Ryan to the police and who knows how factual they really are.  Full story; http://bodybuilding.elitefitness.com/craig-titus-trial-murder-bodyb...

Some believe steroids were responsible not only for pumping up Green's body, but also for twisting his mind, changing him from a bright and determined young man into a violent felon.  Green was convicted Friday of the 1985 murder of 12-year-old Brenda Gere, who was abducted from her Clearview home, murdered and buried in a shallow grave miles from home.

That was the most heinous of a string of crimes Green committed during a nine-week period in 1985. The crime spree began about the time Green began taking steroids after a four-month hiatus that led to severe physical and psychological withdrawal, according to family, friends and court documents.

Increasingly, scientists are discovering that steroid abuse can produce striking psychiatric effects ranging from unexplained aggressiveness to delusions. What isn't well understood is exactly how the mental side effects might contribute to a person becoming violent. The question is whether steroids create violent tendencies or if they simply ignite an already-violent nature.  One steroid researcher who reviewed Green's case, said steroids likely contributed to Green's criminal behavior.  And after his conviction, Green said steroids contributed to "putting me in the position of being where I am today."  Full story; http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19930425&a...

A 2005 review determined that some, but not all, randomised controlled studies found that anabolic steroid use correlates with hypomania and increased aggressiveness. 

In a 2008 study on a nationally representative sample of young adult males in the United States found an association between lifetime and past-year self-reported anabolic-androgenic steroid use and involvement in violent acts. Compared with individuals that did not use steroids, young adult males that used anabolic-androgenic steroids reported greater involvement in violent behaviors even after controlling for the effects of key demographic variables, previous violent behavior, and polydrug use.^[1]

A 1996 review examining the blind studies available at that time also found that these had demonstrated a link between aggression and steroid use, but pointed out that with estimates of over one million past or current steroid users in the United States at that time, an extremely small percentage of those using steroids appear to have experienced mental disturbance severe enough to result in clinical treatments or medical case reports.^[2]

A 1996 trial which involved 43 men, did not find an increase in the occurrence of angry behavior during 10 weeks of administration of testosterone enanthate at 600 mg/week, but this study screened out subjects that had previously abused steroids or had any psychiatric antecedents.^[3]

A trial conducted in 2000 using testosterone cypionate at 600 mg/week found that treatment significantly increased manic scores on the YMRS, and aggressive responses on several scales.^[4]

A 2006 study of two pairs of identical twins, in which one twin used anabolic steroids and the other did not, found that in both cases the steroid-using twin exhibited high levels of aggressiveness, hostility, anxiety, and paranoid ideation not found in the "control" twin.^[5] A small-scale study of 10 AAS users found that cluster B personality disorders were confounding factors for aggression.^[6]

1. ^ Beaver KM, Vaughn MG, Delisi M, Wright JP (December 2008). "Anabolic-Androgenic Steroid Use and Involvement in Violent Behavio.... Am J Public Health 98 (12): 2185–7. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2008.137018. PMC 2636528. PMID 18923108.
2. ^ Bahrke MS, Yesalis CE, Wright JE (1996). "Psychological and behavioural effects of endogenous testosterone and anabolic-androgenic steroids. An update". Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) 22 (6): 367–90. doi:10.2165/00007256-199622060-00005. PMID 8969015.
3. ^ Tricker R, Casaburi R, Storer T, et al. (1996). "The effects of supraphysiological doses of testosterone on angry behavior in healthy eugonadal men—a clinical research center study". J. Clin. Endocrinol. Metab. 81 (10): 3754–8. doi:10.1210/jc.81.10.3754. PMID 8855834.
4. ^ Pope, Harrison G.; Elena M. Kouri; James I. Hudson (February 2000). "Effects of Supraphysiologic Doses of Testosterone on Mood and Aggr.... Med Sci Sports Exerc. (Arch Gen Psychiatry) 57 (2): 133–140. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.57.2.133. PMID 10665615. Archived from the original on 23 March 2007. Retrieved 2007-04-24.
5. ^ Pagonis TA, Angelopoulos NV, Koukoulis GN, Hadjichristodoulou CS, Toli PN (2006). "Psychiatric and hostility factors related to use of anabolic steroids in monozygotic twins". Eur. Psychiatry 21 (8): 563–9. doi:10.1016/j.eurpsy.2005.11.002. PMID 16529916.
6. ^ Perry PJ, Kutscher EC, Lund BC, Yates WR, Holman TL, Demers L (2003). "Measures of aggression and mood changes in male weightlifters with and without androgenic anabolic steroid use". J. Forensic Sci. 48 (3): 646–51. PMID 12762541.