Minneapolis police caused 44 people to lose consciousness while using neck restraints during the last five years, according to a report.
The figure, according to NBC News and law enforcement experts, appears to be atypically high for a city of 400,000-plus residents like Minneapolis, but a lack of publicly available use-of-force data makes comparisons with other municipalities difficult.
Still, cops across the country have been less reliant on restraining suspects by the neck due to the tactic’s “inherent life-threatening potential” and the possibility of misreading a person who is trying to breathe as non-compliant, a California deputy sheriff and attorney said.
“It’s common sense,” Plumas County Deputy Sheriff Ed 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.”
Neck restraints have been used at least 237 times by the Minneapolis Police Department since 2015, resulting in 16 percent of the suspects and other individuals losing consciousness, according to use-of-force records cited by NBC News.
In the majority of those instances, neck restraints were used after a suspect fled on foot or while reacting as they were being arrested. Nearly half of the people who lost consciousness were hurt, although the extent of their injuries is unclear, according to the Minneapolis police data.
Five of the cases involved reports of assaulted officers, while others pertained to domestic abuse or assault allegations. The majority of incidents, however, were apparently not connected to violent offenses, NBC News reported.
Of those who were rendered unconscious during neck restraints, 60 percent were black, while about 30 percent were white. Nearly all of the people involved were male, data shows.
Less than one-fifth — 19.4 percent — of Minneapolis residents are black, compared to 63.8 percent who are white, Census data from July 2019 shows.
Minneapolis police did not immediately comment on the data, NBC News reports.
Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, was caught on video on May 25 kneeling on the neck of George Floyd as the handcuffed black man pleaded, “I can’t breathe.”
Chauvin and three other cops who were arresting Floyd have been fired, while Chauvin has been charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death.
The maneuver Chauvin used during the incident is not taught or sanctioned by any police agency, more than a dozen law enforcement experts and a Minneapolis city official told NBC News.
“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. As a cop, the tone is there, ‘Use it when you think it’s appropriate.’”
The use of neck restraints by Minneapolis cops is permitted on a person who is “exhibiting active aggression,” for life-saving purposes and on those who show “active resistance” in order to gain control of the person, according to an online version of the department’s policy manual.