LOS ANGELES -- Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates said Monday he was pleased the U.S. Supreme Court will review the practice of using controversial chokeholds on suspects and said he expected a favorable ruling.
A city councilman also applauded the high court's decision.
'It is a technique which has to be available to the police department because the alternative would be use of even more lethal force,' Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky said.
The Supreme Court said it would hear arguments next fall on a federal court order that would ban the city's police from using the controversial technique except in life-threatening situations.
'We've attempted, as have some other departments to find some answer to taking the PCP suspect without injury to either officers of suspect,' Gates said.
He said people who have taken the drug PCP -- or Angel Dust -- 'are impervious to pain and display superhuman strength.'
He said officers have tried Taser guns, tear gas and a 'leg grabber' in attempts to restrain PCP suspects with little success.
A Taser gun fires two darts attached to a 15-foot long wire which sends 50,000 volts of electricty into a suspect, and usually renders the suspect helpless.
'But not those people under the influence of PCP,' spokesman Lt. Dan Cooke said. 'They just ignore it. One guy just pulled the darts out of his chest and kept coming.'
A leg grabber is a metal pincer device at the end of a pole used to grab the legs of a suspect and force him to the ground.
'The problem with anything like this,' Cooke said, 'is it takes the most opportune geography and timing and if you are under attack, you can't tell the suspect to wait while you go get a Taser.'
Gates said the chokehold, or bar-arm control hold, is used successfully hundreds of time a year without causing injury.
