STRAPPED DOWN AND SHOCKED
According to media reports, 18-year-old Jordan Norris was arrested
on 3 November 2016 by Cheatham County police in Tennessee, USA,
for possession of drugs and weapons. On 5 November 2016 while in
detention, he began to suffer a “mental health episode” and banged his
head against the door. He was put on “suicide watch” while a nurse was
called to attend to him. During this period, he was placed in a restraint
chair and his arms, chest, waist and legs were strapped down. While he
was restrained, a cloth gag was placed in his mouth and two deputies
held him down while a third used a taser four times in direct contact
mode against his chest, close to his heart. The incident was filmed by the
Cheatham County Police Department video surveillance camera, which
recorded the deputy with the projectile electric shock weapon telling
Norris: “I’ll keep on doing that until I run out of batteries.”7
TORTURED WITH ELECTIC SHOCK WEAPONS
Amnesty International documented multiple cases of torture and other ill-treatment by Egypt’s
National Security Agency (NSA) in the context of counter-terror operations in 2015 and 2016. 8
According to former detainees, their families and lawyers, techniques used were beating; prolonged
suspension by the limbs from a ceiling or door while handcuffed and blindfolded; and the application
of electric shocks, mostly using electric shock weapons, to the genitals and other sensitive areas
of the body and face. Some detainees reported that they were subjected to the “grill”, a method
in which the victim is rotated over a rod inserted between his tied hands and legs and balanced
between two chairs. Some detainees say that while detained in NSA premises they were handcuffed
to another detainee on one side and on the other side to a high wall to prevent them from sleeping,
which damaged their wrists, arms and shoulders.9
1.1.2 ABUSIVE RESTRAINTS
In his 2013 report to the UN General Assembly the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture stated that “the
use of physical restraints that are inherently inhuman, degrading or painful (such as electro-shock
stun belts and restraint chairs) has humiliating and degrading effects and has been condemned and
prohibited by both the Special Rapporteur and the Committee against Torture as methods of restraining
those in custody.”10 Unfortunately a range of inherently abusive restraints including hoods, leg irons,
restraint chairs and restraint beds continue to be employed in all regions of the world.11
RESTRAINT BEDS
Following its 2016 mission to Spain, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) raised concerns regarding the use of restraint
beds in juvenile detention centres and called for an end to such practices. In Tierras de Oria centre
“Juveniles were fixated to the bed face down, with their wrists and ankles (and sometimes the torso)
7
“Deputies tortured a restrained teenager by using a stun gun on him, lawyers say”, Washington Post, 2 August 2017, www.
washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/08/02/would-you-like-to-comply-deputies-used-torture-by-tasering-a-restrainedinmate-lawyers-say/
8 Amnesty International, Egypt: ‘Officially, you do not exist’: disappeared and tortured in the name of counter-terrorism, (Index: MDE
12/4368/2016)
9 Amnesty International, Egypt: ‘Officially, you do not exist’,
10 Interim Report to the General Assembly, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment, UN Doc. A/68/295, (2013), para. 58
11 Although use of restraint chairs and restraint beds for law enforcement is inappropriate and should be prohibited, they may have
legitimate employment in restricted and carefully controlled medical contexts, for instance to prevent movement during emergency
treatment, or to prevent suicide or self-harm.
ENDING THE TORTURE TRADE THE PATH TO GLOBAL CONTROLS ON THE ‘TOOLS OF TORTURE’
Amnesty International | Omega Research Foundation
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