Restraint asphyxia can occur when police restrain a person face down on the ground (prone), and put prolonged weight on the person’s back, neck, or even limbs – sometimes, but not always, after there has been a struggle or use of a Taser. Sometimes police officers violate their training and fail to place a restrained person on their side after being handcuffed on the ground to allow them to catch their breath. Those types of improper restraints can impair the person’s ability to breathe and can lead to death by asphyxia. Very often, the person being restrained will try to tell the officers that they cannot breathe, like Eric Garner, George Floyd, and many of our clients have done.
Haddad & Sherwin LLP are experts in handling restraint asphyxia cases. Julia Sherwin is a nationally recognized expert in restraint asphyxia cases, and provided consultation to Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison in his criminal prosecutions of the Minneapolis Police Officers who killed George Floyd. She also provided key amendments to California’s laws prohibiting restraints likely to cause asphyxia, and prohibiting the junk science defense of excited delirium which often arises in these cases. She co-authored the Physicians for Human Rights report debunking excited delirium.
