Newsom Orders End To 'Carotid Hold' Training In State Police Program

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CBS13/AP) — Gov. Gavin Newsom has ordered the state police training program to stop teaching officers how to use a hold that can block the flow of blood to the brain.

It is Newsom's first action following two weeks of protests across the country after the death of George Floyd. Floyd died on Memorial Day after a police officer put his knee on his neck for several minutes.

"I am immediately directing POST, which is our police officers training, to end the training of that practice, and I could not be more pleased," Newsom said in a news conference on Friday. "No sooner did we make a commitment on this proposal that a member of the legislature, Mike Gibson, to his credit, just introduced a piece of legislation that I will support and sign as soon as it gets to my desk to legislatively end that practice in the state of California."

Since Floyd was killed, some police departments have moved to end the use of carotid holds.

Newsom said that hold has no place in the 21st century.

"The black community does not need to change. We need to change. We have a responsibility to change. Our institutions need to change. Our capacity of understanding needs to change," Newsom said. "We need to contextualize not only this moment but moments in the past where we never met these calls and these cries. That we ran short. We ran long on rhetoric, short on results. "