The version of the Minneapolis Police Department’s policy manual that is available on-line, however, does permit the use of neck restraints that can render suspects unconscious, and the protocol for their use appears not to have been updated for more than eight years.
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Minneapolis police data shows that in the bulk of use-of-force cases involving neck restraints when an individual lost consciousness, the restraint was used after a suspect fled on foot or tensed up as they were being taken into custody. Almost half of the people who lost consciousness were injured, according to the reports, which do not spell out the severity of those injuries.
Five of the cases involved assaults on officers, while several others involved domestic abuse or domestic assault cases. In most cases, there was no apparent underlying violent offense.
he Minneapolis Police Department did not immediately provide comment on the data, and did not respond to a request to confirm that the dates in parentheses refer to when the manual and its sections were updated.
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Ed Obayashi, an attorney and the deputy sheriff in Plumas County, California, is a national use-of-force expert who trains and advises California police agencies. He said police departments across the country have been moving away from the neck restraint option for many years because of its “inherent life-threatening potential” and because officers often misinterpret resistance by a suspect, who may simply be struggling to breathe.
“It’s common sense,” Obayashi said. “Any time you cut off someone’s airway or block blood flow to the brain, it can lead to serious injury or death as we have seen in so many of these tragedies. By using this tactic, it’s a self-fulfilling tragedy.”
Obayashi said it’s notable that the Minneapolis Police Department policy on neck restraints appears to be dated and said that rather than discouraging or generally prohibiting the tactic, its policy language is consistent with a permissive stance.
“The [Minneapolis] policy doesn’t appear to reflect what California and other law enforcement agencies using best practices recognize, which is if officers don’t use extreme caution with this force option, the likelihood of serious injury or death rises significantly,” Obayashi said.
“This seems to be a routine practice by the Minneapolis Police Department,” said Obayashi. “As a cop, the tone is there, ‘Use it when you think it’s appropriate.'”
Shawn Williams, an assistant professor and professional peace officer coordinator at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, worked at the Minneapolis Police Department for more than 10 years and oversaw training his last two years there, including the use of unconscious neck restraints. He said he understands why other departments do not use the maneuver.
Obayashi said it’s notable that the Minneapolis Police Department policy on neck restraints appears to be dated and said that rather than discouraging or generally prohibiting the tactic, its policy language is consistent with a permissive stance.
“The [Minneapolis] policy doesn’t appear to reflect what California and other law enforcement agencies using best practices recognize, which is if officers don’t use extreme caution with this force option, the likelihood of serious injury or death rises significantly,” Obayashi said.
“This seems to be a routine practice by the Minneapolis Police Department,” said Obayashi. “As a cop, the tone is there, ‘Use it when you think it’s appropriate.'”
Shawn Williams, an assistant professor and professional peace officer coordinator at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, worked at the Minneapolis Police Department for more than 10 years and oversaw training his last two years there, including the use of unconscious neck restraints. He said he understands why other departments do not use the maneuver.
“In many cases,” he said, “the justification was that the suspect tensed up, which I read to mean resisted arrest or fled on foot without any indication that the suspect was armed or dangerous. You have a combination of a large number of incidents involving the use of neck restraints on individuals who were not engaged in violent criminal activity and appeared to have been restrained because they appeared to be resisting arrest.”
Despite a turbulent past, the LAPD was one of the first police agencies to address deadly or excessive force incidents that grew out of using chokeholds. In 1982, at the request of then-Chief Daryl F. Gates, the department banned the bar-arm chokeholds and limited upper-body controls, then commonplace, after a federal lawsuit. Sixteen people — including a dozen African-American men — died from various forms of upper-body controls over a seven-year period leading up to the decision.
The Los Angeles Police Commission followed up the bar-arm ban weeks later by restricting the carotid chokehold, designed to immobilize a suspect by blocking the neck artery and, by extension, the flow of blood to the brain. The department still allows officers to use a carotid restraint but limits those situations to immediate danger to life.
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