Columbia formally bans police chokeholds after George Floyd protests
The city of Columbia tightened its use of force policy for Columbia police officers on Tuesday, explicitly banning chokeholds in response to a national conversation about police tactics.
The change adopts a stated policy on the use of a tactic local police have long avoided, said Columbia Police Chief Skip Holbrook.
“We’ve never allowed it, nor have we trained to use it,” Holbrook told city council members on Tuesday.
How and when police are able to deploy force has become a topic of national discussion since the death of George Floyd, who died in police custody when a Minneapolis officer knelt on Floyd’s neck on May 25. Floyd’s death sparked weeks of protests, including in Columbia.
Large Columbia protests ended with clashes between local police and protesters on the weekend of May 30 and 31. But other protests focused on the S.C. State House have continued without incident since then, including two peaceful marches this past weekend.
Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin said the policy change, which prohibits holds around a suspect’s neck unless there is a situation where deadly force is authorized, brings Columbia in line with the “Eight Can’t Wait” checklist. Advocates of police reform have adopted the slogan for a list of changes they want to see in police procedures.
Columbia police already follow the other seven, Benjamin said, including requiring de-escalation efforts, an officer warning before shooting, exhausting alternatives to deadly force, an officer’s duty to intervene when another officer is inappropriately deploying force, a ban on firing at or from moving vehicles, establishing a use of force continuum, and requiring reporting of use of force incidents.
“We’re well ahead of the curb in terms of training, cultural sensitivity training, unconscious bias training, and identifying individuals who are dealing with chronic or mental illness,” Benjamin said.
Some hoped to see the city go further. Members of the group Empower SC spoke to the council on Tuesday to encourage the city to “refund the community” — a play on calls to “defund the police” — that would move more than $3 million from the police department to fund programs for the homeless, senior citizens, economic support and the public defender’s office.
Is the police budget “really protecting the less fortunate sleeping in an alley, or senior citizens whose retirement ran out a long time ago?” asked Rye Martinez, a member of Empower SC.
Other speakers called on the city to ban the use of tear gas, which was deployed to break up crowds during protests at the end of May. They also called for the release of police body camera footage of the shooting of Joshua Ruffin, a 17-year-old who was shot and killed by a Columbia police officer on April 8. That shooting remains under investigation by the solicitor’s office.
City Manager Teresa Wilson said the short time frame for the city to act before the new fiscal year begins July 1 and the economic constraints of the COVID-19 outbreak left council members little room to reconsider their budget commitments. She said council could still vote to adjust budget amounts later. Council formally adopted its $138 million general fund budget on Tuesday.
Wilson added that when city residents usually ask about police, they “ask for more police, not less.”
Empower SC member Jazmyne McCrae said she was disappointed with the city’s response. “The budget is not due until the end of the month,” McCrae said. “It could still be adjusted.”
Even before Tuesday’s chokehold policy was adopted, Holbrook emphasized to city council that Columbia police also refer all investigations of police conduct to outside investigators. The department also uses a peer review system for officer conduct in-house, and have instructed school resource officers from the department not to get involved in purely disciplinary matters.
Columbia’s police chief has been named to a national task force on police reform by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
Holbrook told city council he would prefer law enforcement not get involved in “low-level” offenses, citing homeless issues, opoid use, noise complaints and disputes between neighbors.
“I would love to get those off our table,” Holbrook said.
Likewise, Benjamin assured members of the public at Tuesday’s meeting the city will continue to seek avenues for improvement going forward.
“If we can’t use this as an edifying moment and change our community for the better, we will have missed the moment of a lifetime.”
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