Thread by @timkmak

Thread: There's a glaring exception in President Trump's executive order as it relates to chokeholds.

And it's not the one you think.

It's in the way that 'chokeholds' are defined.

A layperson may think chokeholds refer to maneuver in which someone has an arm around your neck to restrain you.

Here is how the executive order lays out the definition.

"a physical maneuver that restricts an individual's ability to breathe for the purposes of incapacitation."

Reducing use of chokeholds that restrict airway does NOT also restrict the use of holds that restrict **blood flow to the brain.**

You might recall that that the lawyer for the police officer who put Eric Garner in a neck restraint insisted it was not a 'chokehold'

As it happens just this morning @MEvstatieva and I published a story about how chokehold bans have fallen short.

One major reason is that technical difference: even when airway 'chokeholds' are banned, neck restraints aka blood chokes are permitted.

npr.org/2020/06/16/877…

@MEvstatieva Neck restraints fall in two categories:

--Chokeholds which restrict airway
--Strangleholds/blood chokes which restrict blood flow to brain

Addressing one but not the other is a glaring omission in the president's executive order.

@MEvstatieva Chokeholds have been banned in many major police departments in the US:

New York, L.A., Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston. NYPD banned chokeholds decades ago.

But many allow strangleholds.

And in this way neck restraints are still used by many of depts which outlaw 'chokeholds'

@MEvstatieva The NPR Investigations team found case after case of people who died after neck restraints -- the broader term encompassing chokehold and stranglehold -- were used in their arrest.

npr.org/2020/06/16/877…

@MEvstatieva There's been a dance around definitions: and in the way the White House defines chokeholds, it permits -- or does not address -- the use of other neck restraints that could also be dangerous if officers are not properly trained.

@MEvstatieva The policing reform package proposed by Congressional Democrats addresses both forms of neck restraints by using this definition:

@MEvstatieva The spin on so many of these executive orders require you not to read the actual executive order.

Remember the EO Trump signed to keep meat and poultry processing plants open? Everyone covered the press release.

Very few people actually read the text:
washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/0…

@MEvstatieva The Sen. Tim Scott policing reform legislation refers to the 'banning of chokeholds' -- and defines chokeholds like the White House did, which allows neck restraints other than airway chokes.

See the thread above re: what that definition leaves out.

scott.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/…