Police Keep Using Chokeholds, Despite Bans and Scrutiny - NYTimes.com - 0 views
www.nytimes.com/...despite-bans-and-scrutiny.html
police scrutiny US politics history culture policy
shared by jlessner on 12 Jan 15
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Before pepper spray, Tasers, expandable batons and portable radios, New York police officers facing resistance from a criminal suspect had another option: the chokehold. By 1993, though, the New York Police Department had joined departments in other large cities by banning the chokehold with an order that amounted to, in the words of former Chief of Department John F. Timoney: “Stay the hell away from the neck.”
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The public anger that followed a grand jury’s decision not to indict the officer fueled demonstrations across the country, and in New York, the protests laid bare a rift between Mayor Bill de Blasio and the police.
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On Monday, the newly created city inspector general for the Police Department said, in its first report, that in several cases reviewed, police officers went to the move as a “first act of physical force” when facing “mere verbal confrontation.”
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And, as the Police Department, prompted by Mr. Garner’s death, undertakes a sweeping review of its use-of-force policies, senior commanders have been taking a hard look at the chokehold ban.