Pay attention to handcuffed subjects

Last week I received an interesting email from one of my many “pen pals” out there in Internetland. It had been a while since I’d heard from Chief Dan Losada of the Knoxville (Iowa) Police Department, so when I saw his name pop up in my inbox my interest was immediately piqued. 

I was further intrigued when I saw that Chief Losada had attached a video. The lesson in it is well worth sharing in this space: pay attention to handcuffed subjects.

“I teach an ‘Intro to Criminal Justice’ class at the local high school,” Losada wrote. “We were discussing handcuffing when a student told me she could bring her cuffed hands over her head. I asked her to show me and she did. After getting her parents’ permission, I filmed her doing it. Right after filming this I had another student tell me that he too could do it. And then he did it.”

Losada told me that in the 31 years he’s been a cop, he’d seen this only once before. Then in the span of only a few minutes, he saw it twice. “Either this generation is a lot more flexible or this may not be as uncommon as most cops think. 

Losada said that in his experiment, cuffing the subject who has this kind of flexibility using the ‘hands back-to-back technique’ — which is commonplace — can get their hands over their head quickly and easily. 

“Cuffing cross-wristed, though, they could not get their hands above their heads,” Losada said. 

Check out the video and add your own thoughts about it in the comments area below.