It bars the use of chokeholds, neck restraints and other tactics that might cut off someone’s ability to breathe.
The Portland Police Department bars the use of chokeholds, neck restraints and other tactics that might cut off someone’s ability to breathe and classifies such techniques as deadly force, according to the department’s use-of-force policy.
The department released a copy of the policy last week as millions of anti-racism protesters flooded city streets across the country and around the world, demanding that police agencies be defunded and reformed, and that police stop killing people, especially people of color.
The unrest was sparked by the death in Minneapolis of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died in police custody on Memorial Day after three officers knelt on his body as he lay facedown on the pavement, begging for air. Former officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, was captured on tape pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly 9 minutes before Floyd slowly stopped talking and lost consciousness. When paramedics arrived, he did not have a pulse, and was pronounced dead a short time later at a nearby hospital. All four officers involved in the arrest now face charges, including a second degree murder charge against Chauvin.
Protests across the country have largely remained peaceful, but flares of violence and looting have been met in some places with a swift crackdown by police, who have beat demonstrators with batons, fired rubber bullets and pepper balls at them and deployed irritants such as tear gas and pepper spray. Portland demonstrations have been mostly peaceful, but police used riot gear and pepper spray after two protests became violent and several businesses suffered burglaries, smashed glass and other damage.
Police departments across the country are re-evaluating their use-of-force policies after Floyd’s death, and some departments have since banned maneuvers designed to cut off oxygen to someone’s brain and render them unconscious. Minneapolis allowed the use of the neck restraints by police until it also banned them on Friday.
Police officers in Minneapolis had used the technique 237 times, and rendered 44 people unconscious with the neck restraint since the beginning of 2015, according to NBC News.
Portland’s use-of-force policy was ratified in 2012 and last amended in 2017. It’s unclear when chokeholds were banned or what prompted the change.
The city’s policy is currently undergoing a regular review by the Maine Criminal Justice Academy to ensure it meets minimum statewide requirements.
On Tuesday, the Portland City Council’s Health and Human Services Committee will begin a review of the police department’s policies, including those that govern use of force, body cameras, crisis intervention and de-escalation, and implicit bias. The remote meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m., and councilors encouraged the public to participate online.
Unlike some departments around the country, the Portland Police Department is one of many in Maine that do not proactively publish their standard operating procedures for the public to read.
