Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

RCMP to ban hog-tying

The RCMP plans to issue new orders to officers telling them not to hog-tie suspects.

The RCMP plans to issue new orders to officers telling them not to hog-tie suspects.

It is a reaction to a recommendation by the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, which found the controversial practice was used in four cases where suspects died in-custody between 2001-2009. Police also Tasered suspects in all four instances.

The national police force discontinued hog-tying in 2002.

"The RCMP is releasing a subsequent operational bulletin reminding members that the

use of the hog tie is not an approved method of restraint," said RCMP spokesperson Sgt. Julie Gagnon.

The case of 33-year-old Clayton Willey, a Prince George resident who died after a violent altercation with police outside the Parkwood Place Mall in 2003, is among the four cited in the CPC report. Willey was hog-tied, kicked, pepper sprayed, and Tasered by several police officers as they attempted to subdue him.

Testifying at a coroner's inquiry following the death, the officer who hog-tied Willey said he was not aware the restraint was no longer approved by the RCMP. Commenting on the Willey case, a police spokeperson said hog-tying was necessary to stop the suspect from kicking. The inquest found Willey died of a cocaine overdose, not physical force applied by officers nor repeated shocks from a Taser.

However, the CPC found officers still hog-tied suspects in several instances years after Willey's death.

Sgt. Gagnon said hog-tying was replaced with the RIPP Hobble Cord Cuff system. Hog-tying a suspect involves binding a person's hands and feet and then linking their limbs behind them with a rope, chain or other restraint. The hobble cord cuff does not attach to handcuffs and is linked to a suspect's front, where the belt buckle would be, rather than behind the back; this restrains the feet and legs but leaves the individual in a "more neutral" body position.