The LAPD put a moratorium on the training and use of carotid holds Monday after Governor Gavin Newsom called for California police departments to end their use. 

Police Commission President Eilleen Decker asked for a review on the department’s use of the restraint, and both she and Chief Michel Moore decided to stop the practice, at least temporarily. 

Assemblymember Mike Gipson (D-Carson) introduced a bill last Friday that would make the use of the hold punishable by law in the state of California. 

Newsom said that he would immediately sign the bill if it were to reach him. 

“We can argue that these are used as exceptions, but at the end of the day, a carotid hold that literally is designed to stop people’s blood from flowing into their brain?” Newsom said while addressing the issue Friday. “That has no place any longer in 21st-century practices and policing.”

While the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department is currently reviewing the use of the carotid hold, Sheriff Alex Villanueva has been hesitant in supporting the ban, saying that “taking away a tool” could lead to deadlier force being used.

Los Angeles and the nation have seen over a week of mass protests for police reform following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

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