Police have long known the dangers of holding people in prone restraint. So why do so many keep dying?
On a Thursday morning in October 2020, less than five months after George Floyd was held on his stomach by Minneapolis police officers until he died, Shayne Sutherland called 911 from a convenience store in Stockton, California, and asked for a taxi.
When the operator told Sutherland he’d dialed 911, he said someone was trying to rob him.
Stockton police officers Ronald Zalunardo and John Afanasiev arrived at the store about 15 minutes later. In the meantime, a store employee had called 911, saying Sutherland was threatening him with a wine bottle.
In body camera footage that captured the officers’ response, Sutherland seems fidgety and his speech is difficult to understand at times, but he doesn’t appear violent and he isn’t armed. He cooperates with police, addressing Zalunardo as “sir” and sitting against a wall outside the store as instructed.
The officers question Sutherland. When he tells them he can’t remember why he’s under court supervision, Afanasiev says, “the drugs probably have something to do with it”.
“How long you been using meth,” Zalunardo asks. Sutherland stutters and says he’s been using cocaine.
Sutherland briefly stands, then sits when ordered to do so. A minute later he stands up again. This time, the officers tackle him to the ground and hold him belly down – a position known as prone restraint. Thirty seconds later, his hands are cuffed behind his back.
Hellbound and Down 