>>> The following is an excerpt from L.A. Secret Police by Mike Rothmiller and Ivan G. Goldman. Rothmiller was a Los Angeles cop for over eleven years, and he survived an unsolved assassination attempt. In his book he reveals a number of secrets, including sneaky ways to inflict pain and suffering on suspects:
As a rookie, Rothmiller wondered at first why so many street toughs were willing to attack groups of cops when the odds were so clearly against them.
Then he learned the secret. Early on he saw a fellow cop pat down a suspect. "Don't move!" the cop ordered: And then almost immediately the young black man jumped and took a swing at the cop. The guy was nuts, Rothmiller though, meat on a hook. And all the cops in range tenderized him. Then Rothmiller wondered if the cop had pulled something. He did, didn't he?
"You got it, rookie," another cop explained.
The frisker, Rothmiller learned, held a pin hidden in his Sam Brown belt. Right after he told the man not to move, the cop jabbed him. So the witnesses across the street had a ll seen the detained jump and swing wildly--just moments after he was told, in no uncertain terms, not to move.
Rothmiller learned to recognize this favorite psycho trick. The nutsos seemed to have their own pain network. Sometimes they just pinched the target in the scrotum or in the sensitive area under the armpits. Same result.
Or the psycho would simply flick the enemy in the eye with his index finger. This worked particularly well when the target was seated in a car. It was a move so subtle not even passengers in the car would be aware of what sparked the altercation.
Once the fight began, there were plenty of other dirty tricks that were creative leaps beyond the mere deployment of saps (black jacks) or batons--bending fingers back, twisting ears, tightening handcuffs into medieval torture devices, slamming the victim's head into the door while placing him in a vehicle.
The textbook-versus-reality teaching method at the academy also extended to compliance holds--the assortment of pain-inducing arm twists, wrist bends, and finger jams that wouldn't appear violent to the casual observer. Academy instructors taught recruits to use this array of inducements on uncooperative suspects, but there were also hints they could be used as well on arrestees who were merely irritating. In those cases, compliance holds were not merely inducements but forms of torture.
Any viewers of late-night news in Los Angeles and many other cities have undoubtedly seen compliance holds without realizing it. If they paid attention to the way the suspect was walking, they might see the individual dancing up on tiptoe--"climbing the sky"--because of the very real sensation of wrists or fingers near the breaking point. Or they could look for a cop with his index finger under someone's nose, another extremely subtle yet very effective method of torture compliance.
Rothmiller knew cops who liked to take a vocal suspect to jail with duct tape over his mouth. The cop would hold his nose just long enough to make him think about dying. Or they would place the victim face-down on the patrol unit's floor, cuffed with both hand and ankle restraints, the officer's boot firmly on his neck. On the ride back, the cop's hands would be in full view. Meanwhile, he would grind the victim's face slowly into the floormat.
If the driver of a paddy-wagon had some grievance against his human cargo, he didn't need much imagination to make their lives miserable. They were handcuffed and seated on unpadded wooden benches along the side. The rest of the environment: bare metal. The driver would simply brake sharply and the offenders would vault forward like so many human cannonballs. Then, when the gas was applied, the effect would repeat in reverse.
Rothmiller saw passengers of such rides when they reached the station--covered with bruises, barely able to walk or talk.
Source: L.A. Secret Police: Inside the LAPD Elite Spy Network, by Mike Rothmiller and Ivan G. Goldman (Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster, 1992), pp 38-40.
http://www.thememoryhole.org/policestate/cop-tricks.htm
Text copyright 1992 Mike Rothmiller and Ivan G. Golman
As a rookie, Rothmiller wondered at first why so many street toughs were willing to attack groups of cops when the odds were so clearly against them.
Then he learned the secret. Early on he saw a fellow cop pat down a suspect. "Don't move!" the cop ordered: And then almost immediately the young black man jumped and took a swing at the cop. The guy was nuts, Rothmiller though, meat on a hook. And all the cops in range tenderized him. Then Rothmiller wondered if the cop had pulled something. He did, didn't he?
"You got it, rookie," another cop explained.
The frisker, Rothmiller learned, held a pin hidden in his Sam Brown belt. Right after he told the man not to move, the cop jabbed him. So the witnesses across the street had a ll seen the detained jump and swing wildly--just moments after he was told, in no uncertain terms, not to move.
Rothmiller learned to recognize this favorite psycho trick. The nutsos seemed to have their own pain network. Sometimes they just pinched the target in the scrotum or in the sensitive area under the armpits. Same result.
Or the psycho would simply flick the enemy in the eye with his index finger. This worked particularly well when the target was seated in a car. It was a move so subtle not even passengers in the car would be aware of what sparked the altercation.
Once the fight began, there were plenty of other dirty tricks that were creative leaps beyond the mere deployment of saps (black jacks) or batons--bending fingers back, twisting ears, tightening handcuffs into medieval torture devices, slamming the victim's head into the door while placing him in a vehicle.
The textbook-versus-reality teaching method at the academy also extended to compliance holds--the assortment of pain-inducing arm twists, wrist bends, and finger jams that wouldn't appear violent to the casual observer. Academy instructors taught recruits to use this array of inducements on uncooperative suspects, but there were also hints they could be used as well on arrestees who were merely irritating. In those cases, compliance holds were not merely inducements but forms of torture.
Any viewers of late-night news in Los Angeles and many other cities have undoubtedly seen compliance holds without realizing it. If they paid attention to the way the suspect was walking, they might see the individual dancing up on tiptoe--"climbing the sky"--because of the very real sensation of wrists or fingers near the breaking point. Or they could look for a cop with his index finger under someone's nose, another extremely subtle yet very effective method of torture compliance.
Rothmiller knew cops who liked to take a vocal suspect to jail with duct tape over his mouth. The cop would hold his nose just long enough to make him think about dying. Or they would place the victim face-down on the patrol unit's floor, cuffed with both hand and ankle restraints, the officer's boot firmly on his neck. On the ride back, the cop's hands would be in full view. Meanwhile, he would grind the victim's face slowly into the floormat.
If the driver of a paddy-wagon had some grievance against his human cargo, he didn't need much imagination to make their lives miserable. They were handcuffed and seated on unpadded wooden benches along the side. The rest of the environment: bare metal. The driver would simply brake sharply and the offenders would vault forward like so many human cannonballs. Then, when the gas was applied, the effect would repeat in reverse.
Rothmiller saw passengers of such rides when they reached the station--covered with bruises, barely able to walk or talk.
Source: L.A. Secret Police: Inside the LAPD Elite Spy Network, by Mike Rothmiller and Ivan G. Goldman (Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster, 1992), pp 38-40.
http://www.thememoryhole.org/policestate/cop-tricks.htm
Text copyright 1992 Mike Rothmiller and Ivan G. Golman
