County Council proposes police chokehold ban
Allegheny County Council on Tuesday heard a first reading of a proposed ordinance that would ban all chokeholds, strangleholds and neck restraints in Allegheny County.
The resolution — primarily sponsored by Council Member Olivia Bennett, D-Northview Heights, and co-sponsored by Bethany Hallam, D-at large, and Anita Prizio, D-O’Hara — was sent to the public safety committee for review.
Although a county police policy already bans neck restraints, Ms. Hallam said passage of the proposed ordinance would make such acts violations of law.
“Even though there is a policy in place, that doesn’t mean it can’t be violated,” Ms. Hallam said. “Individuals doing so under this ordinance would be breaking the law as opposed to internal police policy.”
She said passage of the ordinance as written would apply to county police and other individuals in the county, but not city or municipal police force members, over which the county doesn’t have jurisdiction.
Ms. Hallam noted that the Allegheny County Jail recently approved a ban on neck restraints and chokeholds.
At the end of July, Pittsburgh City Council banned chokeholds and other neck restraints and approved a policy that required officers to intervene if they see other law enforcement officers using “unreasonable force.”
Like the County Council proposal, the city code changes were prompted by the death in May of George Floyd, who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes while three other officers watched. The Memorial Day weekend killing precipitated protests and marches in cities across the U.S.
Such chokeholds and neck restraints were already banned by Pittsburgh police use-of-force procedures, except in situations where police are involved in a “deadly force encounter.” Elevating the ban from the police procedural manual to the city code makes it illegal to do so.
Neck restraints were used five times last year, according to the county police bureau’s 2019 annual report.
In other action, council heard the first reading of an ordinance that would prohibit contracts with vendors that generate revenue derived in whole or part from inmates in the county jail. That proposal was assigned to the budget committee for review.
Council also unanimously cosponsored and approved a resolution noting that the Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette is “involved in a labor dispute that could spell the end of a daily newspaper in this city (Pittsburgh),” and requesting that Block Communications and the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh — along with all other unions at the newspaper — resume negotiations on a new contract.
The newspaper’s Toledo, Ohio-based owners recently and unilaterally imposed new work rules and compensation after failing to reach an agreement on a new contract during 3½ years of negotiations, the resolution states. The guild, which represents more than 120 newsroom employees, and two other unions have voted to authorize a strike.
The council resolution, introduced by Sam DeMarco, R-at large, noted that the last newspaper strike in the city resulted in the demise of The Pittsburgh Press, and a strike at the Post-Gazette would be “detrimental to the residents of Allegheny County, the paper’s employees and to Block Communications itself.”
Council President Pat Catena, reading from the resolution, said council was requesting that all parties involved “resume negotiations immediately, in order to resolve the current impasse without resorting to unilaterally imposed conditions of employment or a work stoppage.”