The Phoenix Police Department said Tuesday it will no longer allow officers to use a dangerous chokehold.
Police Chief Jeri Williams, who leads the law enforcement agency in the nation’s fifth-largest city, said the change will take effect immediately.
“We can’t function as a department without the trust of our community and there are adjustments we can make to strengthen that trust,” said Williams, the city’s first black, female police chief. “I am confident this moves us closer to that goal.”
Phoenix joins several other cities where police departments have taken action involving the “carotid control technique” in the wake of George Floyd‘s death in Minneapolis.
Floyd was killed May 25 after being pinned under the knee of a white police officer for nearly nine minutes. The tactic was different than the carotid hold that involves wrapping an arm around the neck of a person.
Minneapolis has since put a ban on chokeholds. Police in Denver have also banned the use of chokeholds and required officers who intentionally point their gun at someone to notify a supervisor and file a report.
Democrats in Congress proposed this week a massive overhaul of police procedures, including a chokehold ban. The Justice in Policing Act addresses several aspects of policing that have faced pushback, especially as more police violence is captured on cellphone video and circulated around the world.
Attorney Haytham Faraj, who is litigating a lawsuit in the death of a man during a 2017 arrest in Phoenix applauded the city ban on the carotid hold.
Faraj represents the sister of Muhammad Abdul Muhaymin, who died in a struggle with police as they tried to arrest him on a warrant for failing to appear in court.
Video shows an officer pressing his knee on Muhaymin’s head. Farah has alleged further that an officer put his knee in Muhaymin’s neck, where the carotid arteries are located.
Earlier in the struggle, Muhaymin cried out, “I can’t breathe” as four officers tried to hold him down.
It’s unclear whether the asphyxiation death was a result of officers pressing on Muhaymin’s carotid arteries or officers preventing him from breathing by putting their weight on his upper torso, Faraj said.
But Faraj said an officer pressing a knee against Muhaymin’s neck would have the same effect as the carotid hold.
Over the past week, Phoenix police have declined to comment on Muhaymin’s death.
Previously, they said Muhaymin was acting erratically, refused to leave and had assaulted an employee at the community center where the arrest occurred, though Faraj vigorously disputes the assault claim.
Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
