Police holds face new scrutiny

Protesters expected to gather to call for a ban on usage

The use of knee holds by police officers to restrain suspects is back in the spotlight after a lawmaker’s “no” vote on the recently adopted police reform package has reignited public debate over the technique.

Despite announcing a ban on police placing a knee to a suspect’s head or neck as a control hold in the aftermath of a controversial arrest over the summer, the practice is still on the books in Schenectady for certain situations.

Officers can only use the hold in life-threatening situations when “no other option is available.”

“It’s really like a last resort ... if there are no other options available,” city police Chief Eric Clifford told lawmakers earlier this month.

Yet the exception to the ban was not publicized when the city announced policy changes on July 9, three days after Officer Brian Pommer arrested Yugeshwar Gaindarpersaud in an encounter that immediately drew parallels to the death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer six weeks earlier.

City Councilwoman Marion Porterfield claims the city quietly reinstated the policy; Clifford contends otherwise.

Now Black Lives Matter protesters will gather outside of City Hall on Thursday to push for an unequivocal ban on knee holds.

Porterfield cited the perceived reversal in her decision to cast the lone opposing vote against the City Council’s adoption of the state-mandated police reform package last week.

Clifford accused Porterfield of “spreading misinformation” and sharply rebuked her in a letter on Tuesday, contending her public comments justifying her vote were “incorrect” and “have now caused alarm in certain parts of our community.”

“Claims that we added knee-to-head holds back into the department’s use of force policy are false and we urge you to understand how detrimental spreading misinformation is to our efforts to build trust within the community,” Clifford wrote.

Porterfield said she reached out to Clifford through city Mayor Gary Mccarthy’s office following a workshop discussion ahead of the vote to further discuss her concerns and didn’t receive a response.

“The fact that he said I made misleading comments is incorrect,” Porterfield said.

The final police reform package contained numerous changes to the department, including the creation of a new community policing unit and plans to steer mental health calls to outside agencies.

For months, a steering committee helped guide the city-led process, which included review of the department’s use-of-force policy.

Clifford pointed out that neither the committee nor Porterfield raised the issue of knee-to-head holds during the months of discussions.

“None of these issues you now claim were brought up then,” Clifford wrote.

Porterfield drew attention to revised language in the special workshop on March 18 and called for an unequivocal ban.

Clifford contended the policy was not removed and put back in.

It is unclear whether there was an exception to the knee-hold ban between July 9 and Dec. 18 when the most recent changes were made to the use-offorce policy updating the ban on knee-to-head holds “unless deadly physical force is authorized” or “unless no other option was available.”

Yet Clifford acknowledged that department brass huddled with policing and defense experts after the July 9 announcement of the ban and decided adding the exception was necessary.

“This is something that in hindsight, we probably should have thought about longer before we made this change last summer and put this in here,” Clifford told Porterfield on March 18.

At the same time, city police were “well aware” that Gaindarpersaud's encounter with police was generating intense public criticism, “and we felt compelled to act on it, which we did,” Clifford said.

Analysts were unable to pull data on how often knee-to-head holds are used by Schenectady police because that information hasn’t historically been collected.

“I’m not saying that none happened,” Clifford said on Wednesday. “I’m only saying that we have not tracked that and our form never had that specific of a metric listed.”

City police have pledged to tighten up the collection of use-of-force data (now referred to as “response to resistance”) as part of the reform package.

Cellphone-shot video footage of Pommer tussling with Gaindarpersaud drew immediate parallels with the death of Floyd and instantly reignited protests in the city.

But while Pommer’s knee appeared to be on Gaindarpersaud’s neck in the grainy video shot by the suspect’s father, a report by the county district attorney’s office ultimately concluded the officer's knee was on his head for all but one second of the 2 minute and 37 second encounter when it slipped off.

Pommer didn’t use excessive force during the arrest, nor was Gaindarpersaud’s breathing constrained at any time, the report concluded.

Clifford has defended the exception to the policy to lawmakers, contending that knee-to-head holds are part of state training regimens, and that officers need every opportunity to defend themselves in potentially deadly situations. He cited the example of a violent 2015 altercation between a city police officer and former mixed martial arts fighter that left the officer with a fractured skull.

“It’s never good to restrict

officers from doing anything if it could jeopardize their safety,” Clifford said.

Activists will rally in front of City Hall on Thursday and are pushing city police for a no-exceptions ban on knee-to-head holds, a demand echoed by Schenectady NAACP.

“Using a knee hold on any resident of Schenectady is in no one’s best interest,” wrote Schenectady NAACP President the Rev. Nicolle Harris, “officers or civilians.”

The fact that the debate is unfolding when the officer charged with killing Floyd is on trial for murder is only reopening traumatic wounds in the community, said All of Us co-founder Jamaica Miles.

Racial justice activists had called for the ban well before the Gaindarpersaud encounter, which Miles said was only brought to public attention due to their efforts.

Determining when “no other option is available” is purely subjective, Miles said.

“It’s subjective and police have no accountability,” Miles said in a Facebook Live video shot in front of City Hall, one of several designed to publicize the demonstration. “And we don’t have a police civilian review board that has any power to hold them accountable.”

Reforms to the city’s Civilian Police Review Board are unfolding on a parallel track. As part of a slate of reforms, lawmakers agreed to expand the panel’s investigatory powers, including access to body-worn camera footage.

Yet the nine-member panel does not have the power to unilaterally discipline officers, a push sought by activists.