Denver jail death puts new light on common restraint tactic

DENVER (AP) — The death of a 112-pound jail inmate who choked on his own vomit and suffocated after Denver sheriff's deputies restrained him during a psychotic episode is drawing new attention to the way he was subdued: face-down on his stomach with five deputies holding him to the floor.

Experts warn the common but risky police tactic of restraining someone in a prone position can be lethal, especially on those with medical problems and the mentally ill, whose distress is sometimes confused with resistance.

Denver officials on Friday released surveillance footage of deputies' encounter with Michael Marshall, 50, a homeless man who had been jailed for trespassing and died because of "complications of positional asphyxia," according to the medical examiner.

[...] the technique has been cited in several high-profile deaths, including that of Robert Ethan Saylor, an overweight man with Down syndrome who died after a struggle with deputies in a Maryland movie theater; Tanisha Anderson, a mentally ill woman held on her stomach after she tried to escape the back seat of a Cleveland police patrol car; and Robert Minjarez, a cocaine user held down by Louisiana officers as he cried in an increasingly muffled voice, "I can't breathe."

The risks associated with the maneuver are well-documented, but in many jails, deputies lack the training of mental health care workers, who might try to calm someone down by other means than force, such as talking to them, she said.