Court reinstates New York City’s ban on police restraints
An appeals court reinstated a New York City law Thursday that prohibits the city’s police officers from putting pressure on a person’s torso while making an arrest, reversing a lower court ruling that labeled the measure as “unconstitutionally vague.”
A five-judge panel in the appellate division of the state’s trial court ruled that the law, passed in 2020 in the wake of the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, is clear in what officers can and can’t do and won’t lead to arbitrary or discriminatory enforcement.
Manhattan Judge Laurence Love struck down the law last year after police unions sued the city to block it. The measure is sometimes referred to as the “diaphragm law” because it barred officers from restraining people “in a manner that compresses the diaphragm.”