Georgia police departments are under scrutiny after a recent investigation found repeated instances of misapplying restraint positions and techniques, which have been linked to dozens of deaths over the past decade. The Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at Arizona State University, in partnership with The Associated Press, highlighted the case of 24-year-old Fernando Rodriguez, who died after officers from the Hampton city and Henry County police departments applied multiple restraints and Taser shocks during his arrest in 2019, as per FOX 5 Atlanta.
An unsettling body-camera footage reviewed by the Howard Center showed Rodriguez, who was reportedly walking nude and acting erratically, being Tasered at least 16 times as he ignored commands to lay on his stomach, prompting an officer to fire the Taser, and another to issue an order, "Somebody sit on him; sit on him y’all." Law enforcement experts and decades of safety warnings have cautioned against such tactics, warning they can hinder breathing and increase the risk for death, especially in those who are unhealthy or under the influence of drugs, but these messages seem lost or dismissed by the departments whose policies foster a disconnect between practice and principle, as reported by FOX 5 Atlanta.
Despite clear guidelines that date back to 1993 advising officers to avoid tactics like prolonged prone restraint that heightens the risk of positional asphyxia, the practice persists. Seth Stoughton, a law and criminology professor at the University of South Carolina, stressed the acknowledged dangers, saying, "In the training environment, I would say it is, if not universally acknowledged, it is the next best thing to universally acknowledged," as stated in an article by U.S. News. Yet with almost universal agreement about the risks, contradictions continue to surface in the actual training and practices of police departments.
Rodriguez's family brought a lawsuit against the city of Hampton and Henry County, accusing the police of using excessive force and inadequate officer training; the city settled for $3 million, illustrating a costly acknowledgment of wrongdoing even as police departments resist changing their contentious methods of restraint – settling instead of reforming. In Georgia, it was found through testimony that Henry County officers did not receive training on how to put a suspect in a prone position or on positional asphyxia, and this negligence faced no consequence despite regulations in place admonishing such practices, showing a blatant disregard for the stakes of enforcement.
Advocates like Michael White, an Arizona State University professor, underscore the crux of the issue: "Without enforcement, a policy is just a piece of paper," he said. "With enforcement, a policy is the centerpiece of accountability," exemplifying the gap between what is written and what is acted upon by those sworn to protect. This disconnect enables tragedies like that of Rodriguez to unfold, leaving behind grieving families and communities disillusioned with systems they believe should be held to higher standards, according to U.S. News.
