Sheriff address policing tactics for subduing suspects in law enforcement

As the United States Senate debates the passage of a policing bill, Stephen County law enforcement are awaiting the results and ways to apply it to individuals within the community.

The reform in policing comes as the death of unarmed African American males has shifted the debate on policing tactics and placed a keen spotlight on law enforcement.

“It is a travesty to George Floyd and our country that this type of force was used,” Stephens County Sheriff Will Holt said. “Regarding Mr. Floyd and questions about knees to the neck, there is absolutely no reason that the knee to the neck should have occurred. I do not personally know of any agency that teaches knees to the neck as a subduing or re straint tactic. I will go even further by saying, ‘I have never even heard of that being taught’. I am a defensive tactics instructor and have taken hundreds of hours in defense tactics as a student and it is not an acceptable technique. I doubt that it is taught anywhere in the U.S.”

The United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee passed a police reform bill on Wednesday, June 17. The plan would ban chokeholds, no-knock warrants, and limit officers’ immunity from prosecution. The bill would also establish a national database for police misconduct, according to the bill.

“Generally speaking, if you are trying to subdue or hold someone down on the ground, facedown, officers are taught to put a knee in their back or on the back of a shoulder, but never the neck,” Sheriff Holt said. “The only way a knee to the neck would ever be justified is if the officer or a third person was in imminent danger of serious bodily injury or death. At that point, it is not likely that the officer would be in such an advantageous position over someone who is posing death to the officer.”

When asked if the Stephens County Sheriff’s office has a policy on knees to the neck to the subdue an individual, Sheriff Holt was adamant in his response to the question.

“To answer your question about whether we have a policy on knees to the neck, we do not, because such a notion is so ridiculous and not part of any training that any of us have ever received,” Sheriff Holt said. “It’s not even something we could hypothetically dream up. We will probably see agencies explicitly prohibit this now, in writing, as a protector for administrations.”

Stephens County law enforcement will await the bill by the Senate to see how new reforms will affect policing within the community.