Othello PD adopts new restraint system

OTHELLO — Among the many dilemmas facing police officers is how to keep people in a volatile situation from hurting themselves or others.

But sometimes the techniques to avoid harm cause more problems than they solve. So the Othello Police Department recently adopted a system, called The WRAP, designed to make it safer for everyone involved – literally wrapping up a suspect

Sgt. Sean Anderson demonstrated, with Officer Martin Garza as the “suspect.”

“It’s basically a safety restraint,” Anderson said. “When you have someone you have to take into custody, maybe you have a mental health patient, or something like that. It helps to immobilize them without injuring them, allowing them to breathe, and without them or us getting hurt. It’s a rather effective tool.”

The WRAP, manufactured by Safe Restraints Inc., is constructed of heavy-duty material reinforced with padded steel rods, straps and buckles. And it works. The OPD officers know because they tried it out.

“It works well. It works perfectly well,” Anderson said.

“There’s no getting out of it, that’s for sure,” Garza said.

“We were pleasantly surprised, thinking, ‘Oh, maybe we can move a little bit.’ No,” Anderson said. “Your legs are immobilized. Your upper body – you can move it a little bit and you can breathe just fine.”

Breathing, and the inability to breathe, has led to some high-profile cases nationally, where suspects were injured and in some cases, died. Lying face down, or just lying down, can cause problems. Some narcotics cause a person’s heart rate to slow down, and lying down – especially face down – can make it harder to breathe, Anderson said.

Othello Police Chief Phil Schenck said putting handcuffs on a person lying on their stomach is appropriate, but once the cuffs are on it’s important to get the person in a seated position, and do it quickly. Anderson said the officers try to get the handcuffs on within 30 seconds to a minute.

“If we know that someone is on drugs, heavily agitated, freaking out, and we arrest them, it’s imperative that we sit them up as soon as possible,” Schenck said. “This (The WRAP) is a good tool to help us get someone seated, basically off their stomach, even if they’re combative, while they recover.”

“It’s (The WRAP) effective, but it does not hurt you,” Anderson said.

One officer can use it, but it works better and faster with two, and even better with three, Anderson said. When practicing, it’s taken OPD officers somewhere around one to two minutes to wrap up a suspect.

Every piece is marked with big bold letters to save time.

“Literally it says, ‘knees here,’” Garza said.

Once a suspect is in The WRAP, police officers keep talking to the suspect to determine if it’s too tight anywhere.

“It will eliminate injury from them, us and the public,” Anderson said.