Should Sacramento police ban the carotid restraint? Mayor Steinberg wants to review it
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg wants the city to review whether to ban the controversial carotid restraint, he said during an interview Wednesday.
His call for review follows a Sacramento Bee article that revealed the department is investigating a use-of-force incident overnight Monday morning in which an officer used a neck restraint on a teenager in downtown Sacramento. It’s unclear from the cellphone video taken by a bystander if the officer involved was attempting to perform a carotid restraint or another type of neck restraint.
When using the carotid restraint, officers use an arm to apply pressure to both sides of a person’s neck. When used correctly, it can cause a person to quickly become unconscious.
The carotid hold and other restraint tactics have become increasingly controversial following the death of George Floyd, a black man killed when a white officer in Minneapolis knelt on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes. The officer, Derek Chauvin, used a similarly controversial knee-to-neck maneuver on Floyd, who was handcuffed and telling officers, “I can’t breathe,” which has become a widely recited chant of protests nationwide. Chauvin, meanwhile, has since been charged with second-degree murder, and three other officers are facing charges of abetting murder.
The San Diego Police Department this week have so far banned carotid restraints, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. Several smaller agencies in the San Diego area followed suit.
In 2019, following the police killing of Stephon Clark, Sacramento police limited when officers can use the carotid restraint to only times when not using it could cause serious injury or death, Steinberg said after discussing the matter with Sacramento Police Chief Daniel Hahn.
Steinberg wants to have a “public discussion” about the topic, he said during a video interview Wednesday with Sacramento Bee columnist Marcos Bretón.
“The chief said to me today that the reason he believes it should still be allowed as the most limited form of force is that if you take that away, the officer who then is in a situation where he or she is facing a serious threat of bodily injury or death, only then has an option to use a physical weapon,” Steinberg said. “And so I want to have further discussion with him about that and with my colleagues and have it publicly before I just say we should change it. I’m very concerned about it in light of what we know ... I’m very concerned about this policy for all the obvious reasons.”
