Hogtying people soon to be outlawed in Washington; Spokane police already abandoned controversial practice

Police in Washington could soon be banned from hogtying people under a bill headed to the governor’s desk.

This year’s legislation draws from the death of 33-year-old Manuel Ellis, who told Tacoma police he couldn’t breathe after they hogtied him face down on the sidewalk in 2020.

“The hogtie is a method of tying the limbs together, rendering a human being immobile and helpless,” Rep. Sharlett Mena, D-Tacoma, said on the House floor, calling the practice “dehumanizing” and “dangerous.”

The bill unanimously sailed through the Senate in early February before securing an 89-7 vote in the House on Feb. 28. Following amendments in the House, the Senate granted approval on Monday and sent the bill to the governor.

“I hope we never have to speak of this particular topic again because we will get rid of it forever,” said the prime sponsor of the bill, Sen. Yasmin Trudeau, D-Tacoma.

Since 1995, the Department of Justice has advised against hogtying, cautioning it could lead to death when police tether handcuffed wrists to bound ankles. The Washington state attorney general’s office has echoed this recommendation since 2022.

Hogtying grew controversial in Spokane after the death of Otto Zehm in 2006. After a 911 call that mistakenly accused Zehm of taking money from a woman’s ATM account, Spokane police approached him in a north Spokane convenience store on March 18, 2006. There, the 36-year-old was beaten, hit with a stun gun multiple times and restrained in a manner similar to a hogtie and left on his stomach. He also had a modified breathing mask placed over his face that wasn’t connected to oxygen.

Zehm died two days later. The medical examiner ruled his death a homicide, from a lack of oxygen to his brain due to heart failure while being restrained on his stomach.

The Spokane Police Department doesn’t currently use hogtying as a restraint method, and officers don’t carry leg restraints anymore, though they were a useful tool in other instances, department spokesperson Lt. Terry Preuninger said.

But several law enforcement agencies in Washington still use the controversial restraint method, including in Pierce County.

Jeffry Finer, the Spokane attorney who represented Zehm’s family in a lawsuit against the city, said he was surprised to hear that some departments still use this practice, adding that it’s “ineffective and very dangerous.”

“There are other effective ways to restrain somebody,” Finer said. “It shouldn’t even be a last resort because it is so dangerous to the detainee.”

Under the bill, hogtying is defined as the binding of a person’s restrained or bound ankles together with their bound or restrained wrists and has been widely scrutinized for its potential to cause suffocation. Using this definition, police didn’t technically hogtie Zehm, Finer said.

“His hands were restrained, his feet were restrained, (but) they were not bound together,” he said. “The officers pinned him face down and pinned his legs bent so that his heels were near his thighs.”

The Zehm family’s civil case against the city was settled for $1.67 million in 2012.

After the attorney general’s office released their use-of-force model policy advising against the practice in 2022, the Spokane Police Department started to phase out the use of leg restraints and introduced WRAP, Preuninger said. The method involves, a full body restraint device that reduces the risk of injuries and restricted breathing.

“If you’re going to take away a tool that does have a place and is necessary, you need a system to replace it,” he said.

If the bill is signed into law, it will take effect immediately per an emergency clause, instead of the usual 90 days after signature.