Charles Gaither

King County deputies have controversially begun reintroducing chokehold, or LVNR (lateral vascular neck restraint) training in state police academies after a 10-year-long hiatus. The move couldn’t have come at a worse time. Eric Garner’s death in New York due to an officer’s prolonged application of the technique in July unleashed a renewed torrent of public discontent with overly agressive police tactics, which has torn the city of Ferguson, MO apart in the past weeks after the death of unarmed teen Mike Brown.

Charles Gaither, the director of the King County Office of Law Enforcement Oversight, is highly concerned about the technique’s reintroduction in King County.

“The way it’s written in our policy, it should be on par with deadly force and its not,” Gaither says. “There’s more limiting language in the use of tasers than you have with this technique—there’s nothing that says “this is where you should pull the brakes.”

We spoke with Gaither about his take on the technique, it’s potentially deadly effect in King County, and the lack of clear policy on how to regulate or standardize its use:

Can you explain your concerns with the LVNR techinque?

The chokehold or the LVNR, however you want to describe it, is a technique that restricts bloodflow to the brain. If you misapply it, or apply it correctly for too long, you run a risk of causing significant harm, neurological damage, or you know, even death. I kind of think its funny in a way, we call it a chokehold, an LVNR, whatever you call it, it’s a dangerous technique. The sheriff was asked a question today about the chokehold, and he said, “oh we don’t do chokehold,” trying to imply that the chokehold is different than the LVNR. Whatever you call it, you are restricting bloodflow to the brain, and that’s a dangerous thing.

In the academy, they’ll say things like “we’ve trained, we’re good at it,” but that’s in a static environment. In the field, it’s not that way. In the case of New York [with Garner], we don’t know if the guy set out to apply a chokehold, an LVNR, or whatever, but we do know what came about from it when he applied it, and I guess that’s the concern I have, that we have a similar situation here in King County.

The LVNR technique is commonly used in MMA, which Gaither says may explain its popularity with law enforcement.

Why was it reintroducted in King County all of the sudden?

It went out of policy about 10 years ago, it wasn’t because of a death or anything, I think the union just opposed it. Now, with the emergence of MMA and all this other stuff, agents want to apply this sort of technique. I’m not opposed to this technique, but the problem is, the way it’s written in our policy, it should be on par with deadly force and it’s not. There’s more limiting language in the use of tasers than you have with this technique—there’s nothing that says “this is where you should pull the brakes.”

How has King County responded to your concerns?

I’ve sent several emails, I spoke with the chief deputy Chris Barringer about this multiple times, and we requested that we could really vet the policy and the training. We submitted multiple requests to Mr. Barringer to get information on the policies and curriculum, all the things governing the use of this technique, so that we could properly evaluate it.

We want to insure there is accountability—that if a person were to use this technique, there’s a use of force process or a misconduct process investigation of these things that’s proper. But if you look at the policy in there, there’s nothing on that, or anything that says “this is when you use it and when you don’t use it.”

We told them back in 2012 that our use of force policies are inconsistent with best practices. We told them back then to amend that policy so that it’s based on an objective standard, not on the subjective thoughts of a police officer—“Oh it seemed reasonable to me at the time, so I used it.” There is no standard, and there’s no limiting language, which makes it hard to insure there’s a consistent review process, and that if a deputy used this techinique, they’d be held accountable.

Isn’t the sheriff at all worried that the juxtaposition of the reintroduction of this technique in King County alongside the death of Eric Garner in New York from the misuse of the same technique damages public perceptions of the police?

I can’t speak for the sheriff, but if I were the sheriff, I would be worried about it. I wouldn’t put something in motion given the risk, especially what we saw in New York. The timing of this, the need for this, I don’t understand. What is the justification for this? I don’t see it. I know that Bellevue PD allows for this policy, but Seattle PD considers it deadly force. Why King County agencies would have differing policies on this technique doesn’t make sense.

The other thing is, we had an email from a detective we received through the NAACP that was sent to officers trying to get them to work overtime that said he wanted them to “kick ass and take names” and take out bad guys. I understand proactive policing, but this seems to suggest some element of racial profiling. What do “bad guys” look like? Would the use of this LVNR be appropriate with this kind of directive, and a policy that says it can pretty much be used for anything?