Restraining someone by the neck is not a permitted use of force, except potentially as a last resort when someone’s life is in immediate danger, multiple Monadnock Region police chiefs said of their departments’ policies this week.
“In short, no officer should ever be hitting, kicking, or applying any pressure, to any person’s neck, unless the criteria is met to use deadly force,” Hinsdale Police Chief Charles Rataj said in an email Monday. “In that case, the officer is trained to use a firearm.”
Protests have erupted around the country in response to the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody. Floyd, 46, who was black, was handcuffed and pinned face down for eight or nine minutes as a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, held his knee down on Floyd’s neck, according to prosecutors.
Minneapolis has fired Chauvin and the three other officers who were at the scene, and Chauvin has been charged with third-degree murder.
The Minneapolis Police Department’s use-of-force policy calls neck restraints a “non-deadly force option,” defined as using an arm or leg to compress one or both sides of someone’s neck. The department allows officers to use the technique to control a person who is actively resisting arrest or to render unconscious someone who is aggressive or hasn’t been controlled by lower levels of force. (The policy differentiates neck restraints from chokeholds, which involve restricting the airway by pressing on the front of the neck.)
Departments in the Monadnock Region have a much higher standard for restraining someone in that way, if it’s authorized at all, according to a half-dozen local police officials and a review of several use-of-force policies.
John Scippa, director of the N.H. Police Standards and Training Council, which educates and certifies police officers, said neck restraints are not taught at the state’s police academy, which trains new officers.
“We do not teach any type of pinning of the neck,” he said. “Specifically, the recruits are instructed not to kneel on a suspect’s head, not to kneel on their neck, or not to kneel on their spine while they’re attempting to gain physical control of the suspect.”
Police officers sometimes have to use force to make arrests, defend themselves or protect others. That can range from grabbing someone’s wrist to fatally shooting someone, depending on the circumstances.
While every incident is different, officers must determine what force is “reasonable” based on the circumstances, according to U.S. Supreme Court case law. New Hampshire law specifies that “deadly force” — firing a weapon, striking a vital area or other actions likely to cause death or serious injury — can be used only when officers believe it necessary to prevent an immediate threat to their own or another person’s life.
At least six local police departments, as well as Vermont State Police, consider neck restraint a type of “deadly force,” meaning their use would be strictly limited. (Other departments had not responded to The Sentinel’s inquiries by press time.)
Some policies spell that out directly. In other cases, the policy doesn’t specifically mention pressure to the neck, but police chiefs said their officers are not taught any such technique and would rarely, if ever, be justified in using it.
“We do not train nor do we have a specific policy which employs the technique of a neck restraint called a ‘Modified Carotid hold’ or ‘full carotid hold’ that some large departments on the west coast use,” Chesterfield Police Chief Duane Chickering said in an email. “When I worked for the LAPD back in the mid 90’s, I had very specific training with the use of this technique. This specific technique if used, would rise to the level of deadly force.”
Similarly, Dublin Police Chief Timothy Suokko wrote that applying pressure to the neck “would only be acceptable in extreme circumstance where an Officer needed to gain control over a subject who posed a threat of serious bodily injury to someone and no other options were available or effective.
“Also just to clarify, kneeling on a subjects neck while they are handcuffed on the ground is not a ‘neck restraint’ nor would it ever be acceptable,” he added.
Keene Police Chief Steven Russo said the department does not allow chokeholds and does not teach officers to put any kind of pressure on the neck outside of encounters where deadly force is warranted.
Like others, Chickering said he found the actions that led to Floyd’s death “inexcusable.”
“The senseless death of George Floyd has everyone in my agency shaking their heads,” he wrote.
Aside from the particular technique used, the Minneapolis incident — according to video evidence — violated several important principles of the appropriate use of force, said Scippa of the training and standards council.
Officers must not use a level of force beyond what they need to accomplish their lawful objective — that is, subduing and handcuffing someone, he said. And as soon as this objective is met, the use of force must cease.
“There’s no reason for a police officer to continue applying any kind of force in a case where you have full control of the suspect,” as happened with Floyd, Scippa said.
Another key principle: All officers have an “absolute obligation to protect the welfare” of a person under arrest, he said, and those who witness a colleague using excessive force cannot just stand by.
“It’s heartbreaking that other police officers were there and did not intervene,” Scippa said of Floyd’s death. “Because clearly, had they intervened, they could have saved that man’s life.”
Paul Cuno-Booth can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1409, or pbooth@keenesentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter @PCunoBoothKS.
These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.