Timing Is Everything : And now’s not the time to renew chokehold controversy

A Los Angeles Police Department committee is studying whether reviving the use of chokeholds would prove more humane and efficient than using batons to subdue combative suspects. The question is legitimate but ill-timed.

In the early 1980s, Police Chief Daryl F. Gates banned the bar-arm chokehold, in which an officer puts one arm over a suspect’s windpipe and uses his other arm to apply greater force. The chief did allow the use of the less-forceful carotid artery restraining hold, in which an officer makes a V with one arm and squeezes the neck.

The Police Commission later banned all chokeholds except when an officer’s life appeared threatened.

Mayor Tom Bradley and other leaders had questioned seemingly indiscriminate use of chokeholds, particularly on some black men who died. Gates aggravated the controversy when he implied that the deaths might have been a result of black people’s arteries not reopening as fast as in “normal” people.

The present consideration of a new chokehold in which pressure is more precisely applied stems from the Christopher Commission’s tough evaluation of police methods following the Rodney King beating. The police chief would have to approve the renewed use of chokeholds. Gates has lamented the loss of a technique that he considers effective and less dangerous than a baton, but he has been reluctant to again permit what he believes has become a symbol of police oppression.

The Police Commission also would have to approve--something unlikely to happen while tensions from the King beating linger.

Police officers need a variety of effective options, but now is not the time for a return to the controversial and socially inflammatory chokehold. The LAPD committee is also evaluating chemical sprays and stun guns as alternatives to batons.

For the time being, leave the chokehold issue on the drawing board.