Every 3 out of 5 people Minneapolis officers rendered unconscious with neck restraint since 2015 were black
After the tragic death of George Floyd plunged various parts of the United States into chaos and disarray by sparking widespread riots, looting, and vandalism, a recent survey found that Minneapolis Police Department used neck restraints at least 237 times since 2015, which rendered at least 44 people unconscious.
According to an analysis of police records by NBC News, the number of neck restraints used by the Minneapolis police department to mostly arrest people accused of non-violent crimes was "unusually high." Even more disturbing was the fact that three-fifths of those who passed out while under neck restraints were African-Americans. Half of the people rendered unconscious by the police using such maneuvers ended up hurting themselves some way or the other.
"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," Ed Obayashi, who trains police departments on use-of-force, told the outlet. "By using this tactic, it's a self-fulfilling tragedy."
Although more than a dozen police officials and law enforcement experts who confirmed that kneeling on a suspect's neck is "neither taught nor sanctioned by any police agency," Minneapolis Police Department's policy manual, which is available online, shows that the agents can use neck restraints to render a suspect unconscious if the latter is exhibiting "active aggression," or "active resistance" and "if lesser attempts at control have been or would likely be ineffective." Such maneuvers are also legal when done for "life-saving purposes."
NBC's analysis revealed that the Minneapolis police mostly resorted to using neck restraints when the suspect attempted to flee or "tensed up" when they were being detained. But that was not the case with Floyd on May 25 when he was arrested after he attempted to pay for cigarettes at a local grocery store using fake money. Although the arresting officers previously claimed that Floyd resisted arrest, a now-viral video of the incident taken by a passerby shows him peacefully allowing an officer to put him in handcuffs, showing no signs of resisting arrest for more than six minutes.
The fatal moment came after officer Derek Chauvin was filmed kneeling on Floyd's neck during the arrest as he was lying facedown on the ground. The policeman refused to listen to the African-American victim's pleas of "I can't breathe." The 46-year-old was then rushed to hospital where he died. On the way to the hospital, the Minneapolis fire department said that Floyd was "unresponsive, pulseless" despite their efforts to revive him.
Obayashi said that the Minneapolis police guidebook was dated and did not discourage the use of violence to detain suspects. "The 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," he told NBC News. "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.'"
Chuck Wexler, who heads the law enforcement think tank Police Executive Research Forum, told NBC News: "There hasn't been one person, one police chief, anyone I've talked to, who doesn't see this exactly the same way. The police officer and those who were there that day failed George Floyd. Every police officer that looked at that video who knows anything about tactics shook their head."
However, the problem of using excessive force when it comes to apprehending members of the black communities went much deeper than just the police policy of a single department and could be traced to centuries of racial profiling and systemic racism. "People were yelling at him as to what he was doing, and he continued to do so. To me that is not a training issue. To me that is a reflection of a culture issue," Seth Stoughton, a use-of-force expert at the University of South Carolina Law School, told NPR. "If there's a belief that some members of the community deserve less dignity than others, these types of things will keep on happening."