Use of force by D.C. police is decreasing, but report also cites improper neck restraints
Peter Hermann
Fewer D.C. police officers are using force, but the department investigated more than a dozen instances of officers improperly using neck restraints to subdue suspects since 2018, an independent review has found.
Police officials ruled that 13 uses of neck restraints since 2018 were unjustified. Two of those cases involve a single officer who has been indicted in federal court on charges of using illegal neck holds. In investigations of two other complaints, the department concluded that such restraints weren’t used.
In other use-of-force incidents, D.C. officers shot at people nine times last year, killing two. That was up from the two previous years but significantly lower than numbers from 2015 through 2017.