Why The ‘Bear Hug’ Matters
For those still unclear on why it’s important to pursue what type of tackle was used against James Chasse, this picture will show what a “bear hug” from behind might mean in a fight, although remember that there was a foot chase going on, so both Chasse and the officers involved in his death would have been in motion.
If the statement of Sergeant Kyle Nice that Officer Christopher Humphreys utilized a “straight bear hug-type tackle” is correct, despite Humphreys’ own claims to the contrary, think of what it would be like to be tackled by someone who has grabbed you like this.
You’d have the weight of the other person (in this case, Humphreys, who reportedly weighs something like 100 pounds more than Chasse did) crushing down on your back from behind, and the force of the sidewalk either directly to your chest from the front — or in fact focused and concentrated through your attacker’s arms, if they remained wrapped around you during the fall, into a crushing ring.
In other words, if Humphreys and his greater-by-100-pounds weight indeed tackled Chasse in this fashion — a fashion which Nice says the Portland Police Bureau no longer teaches its officers to use — that would seem to be the closest thing we have to the death blow.
Addendum: “Because the majority of the witnesses said they saw an officer fall on Chasse,” tomorrow’s Theo reports, “the jurors found that to be the most likely cause of the injury.”
If the statement of Nice is correct, that officer would be Humphreys, and the tackle Humphreys used is a technique the Bureau no longer teaches its officers to use.
And yet nowhere in the article does the paper ask the jurors how that comports with them having found that the “officers followed their training” and “followed their protocol”.
Based on what’s been released and/or reported thus far, it does seem most likely that Humphreys’ tackle was the death blow. So why isn’t the City’s paper of record asking the jurors what the Hell they were thinking?