Police Ruled Not Liable in 3 Deaths : Crime: Although deaths of suspects are ruled accidental, police should be warned of perils of restraining those under arrest, district attorney says.

San Diego police officers were not criminally liable for the recent deaths of three suspects in custody, but all law enforcement agencies should be warned of the perils of restraining those under arrest, the district attorney’s office said in a report released Monday.

Although the deaths were ruled accidental, Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller concurred with the department’s own study that said restraints, especially the use of the carotid hold, should be restricted to cases where an officer’s life is in danger.

Miller ruled on three cases at once--the deaths of John Hampton, Anthony Steele and Perry Smith--because all involved the use of physical restraints on violent suspects.

In the case of 16-year-old Hampton, Miller ruled that the hold was applied too long, but that the death “was legally excusable because the officers performed their duties in a reasonably prudent manner.”

On Jan. 17, the 16-year-old Mira Mesa High School student died at the hands of police as they tried to subdue him during a drug-induced frenzy. One officer estimated Hampton was held in a carotid restraint for one to two minutes.

An autopsy showed that Hampton was under the influence of LSD.

The frequency of police restraint-related homicides in San Diego County and across the nation led Police Chief Bob Burgreen to coin the term “sudden-death syndrome” for the series of unintended deaths.

A number of police departments nationwide over the years have stopped using the technique, which requires an officer to clamp a forearm and biceps around the suspect’s neck. In training, officers are told to apply the hold in three gradations; in each, there is an increase in pressure. The hold cuts off the blood flow through the neck’s carotid arteries, depriving the brain of oxygen.

The initial purpose of the hold is to render suspects helpless without making them lose consciousness. However, as more pressure is exerted, the hold causes a loss of consciousness. The technique has been called the carotid restraint, the sleeper hold or a choke hold.

The restraint has been banned in Los Angeles and has been under review by the San Diego Police Department. Families of victims have urged local police to adopt a similar prohibition.

The department formed in February a task force of police and citizens to study police restraint methods. Already Burgreen has tightened regulations under which officers may use the controversial restraint.

If a suspect is under the influence of alcohol or any drug and the carotid restraint is applied, medical examination is now required, under the department’s new policy. Previously, medical attention was sought for only those who appeared to be in medical distress or under the influence of hallucinogens such as PCP.

Miller’s report cited a 1982 article published in the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology that warned about the use of the carotid restraint. Doctors who authored the article concluded that “neck restraints should always be considered potentially lethal, and should only be used when there is no alternative.”

In the report, Miller compared Hampton’s death to that of Edgar Paris, a 31-year-old man with a history of mental illness who died last year after police applied a carotid restraint. The county medical examiner’s office ruled Paris’ death a homicide, directly attributable to the hold. Miller did not rule on Paris’ death in the report.

However, Miller addressed two other incidents in which related methods of restraint contributed to deaths at the hands of police.

Police in October found Steele running in the middle of a downtown San Diego street, screaming and waving his arms. Officers said they heard him yelling, “They’re after me. They’re after me.”

They arrested Steele and after a brief struggle, hogtied him by placing his hands in cuffs behind him and tying his feet with rope, called cord-cuffs. He was placed in the back of a patrol car on his stomach and taken to a county mental health center. By the time he arrived, Steele was not breathing and never regained consciousness.

The medical examiner’s office ruled that a large amount of cocaine in Steele’s system, combined with the hogtying, contributed to his death.

After Steele died, Burgreen decided that hogtying would not be used to restrain “violent, combative” suspects and that nobody would be kept “in a prone position” while traveling in the back of a patrol car.

The third victim, Perry Smith, died last November after being subdued by six officers outside a Vietnamese market on El Cajon Boulevard.

Officers said Smith was throwing cans of food when they arrived, saying, “They’re getting me. They’re going to get me. Why don’t you come over here and help me?” One officer said Smith knocked him out of the way. The officer, Dan Santiago, hit Smith across the back of the legs with a pair of nunchakus .

Smith ran across El Cajon Boulevard and the officers eventually got him to the ground on his stomach, handcuffed his wrists behind him and when they turned him over, found he wasn’t breathing. Although they administered first aid, he did not regain consciousness.

The medical examiner’s office ruled that Smith died as a result of a cocaine overdose that caused an irregular heartbeat and may have died whether he struggled with police or not.