The most concrete thing Minnesota’s Legislature did to policing after 2020 wasn’t a change to the deadly-force standard. It was a short subdivision that lists three specific physical techniques and says when an officer may not use them. That subdivision is Minn. Stat. § 609.06, subd. 3, and press coverage almost always calls it a “choke hold ban.” I read it differently, and in a case the difference matters. The label is close enough for a headline and wrong enough to lose a motion.
The provision is conditional. It bars three restraints unless the deadly-force statute, Minn. Stat. § 609.066, would authorize deadly force in that moment. To see what that condition does, and how hard it is to meet, you have to read the two sections together.
Start with how § 609.06 is built
Section 609.06 is Minnesota’s general authorization for the use of force. Subdivision 1 opens this way:
Except as otherwise provided in subdivisions 2 to 4, reasonable force may be used upon or toward the person of another without the other’s consent when the following circumstances exist or the actor reasonably believes them to exist:
That opening clause isn’t decoration. Subdivision 1 is a limited authorization, expressly subject to subdivisions 2 through 4. Quote the sentence without its first six words, as briefs sometimes do, and you’ve turned a qualified permission into a general one. The list that follows includes force used by a public officer “in effecting a lawful arrest,” “in the execution of legal process,” “in enforcing an order of the court,” or “in executing any other duty imposed upon the public officer by law,” along with nine other categories that reach parents, teachers, common carriers, and private citizens making arrests.
Subdivision 3 is one of the exceptions that subdivision 1 defers to.
The three restraints, and the condition attached to them
Subdivision 3 is titled “Limitations on the use of certain restraints.” Paragraph (a) reads:
A peace officer may not use any of the following restraints unless section 609.066 authorizes the use of deadly force to protect the peace officer or another from death or great bodily harm:
(1) a choke hold;
(2) tying all of a person’s limbs together behind the person’s back to render the person immobile; or
(3) securing a person in any way that results in transporting the person face down in a vehicle.
Here’s what the text does.
It’s a conditional prohibition. The restraints aren’t categorically outlawed. They’re off the table except in the narrow circumstance where § 609.066 would authorize deadly force to protect the officer or another from death or great bodily harm. In practice that’s close to a ban, because the condition is hard to meet. But “close to” isn’t “the same as,” and a defense that the condition was satisfied is legally available. I expect to see it raised in any restraint case worth litigating.
The condition brings in the whole deadly-force test. Section 609.066, subd. 2(a), permits deadly force “only if an objectively reasonable officer would believe, based on the totality of the circumstances known to the officer at the time and without the benefit of hindsight, that such force is necessary” — and, where the justification is protection from death or great bodily harm, only if the threat “can be articulated with specificity,” “is reasonably likely to occur absent action by the law enforcement officer,” and “must be addressed through the use of deadly force without unreasonable delay.” Those three items are cumulative. So the question in a restraint case isn’t “did the officer feel threatened.” It’s whether a specific, likely, immediately pressing threat of death or great bodily harm existed at the moment the restraint was applied. I walk through the whole statute in my article on Minn. Stat. § 609.066.
It applies to peace officers. Paragraph (a) is addressed to “[a] peace officer.” Section 609.066, subd. 1, gives “peace officer” the meaning found in Minn. Stat. § 626.84, subd. 1.
The definition of “choke hold” is unusually broad
Most of what gets litigated in this subdivision sits in paragraph (b), which defines the term:
For the purposes of this subdivision, “choke hold” means a method by which a person applies sufficient pressure to a person to make breathing difficult or impossible, and includes but is not limited to any pressure to the neck, throat, or windpipe that may prevent or hinder breathing, or reduce intake of air. Choke hold also means applying pressure to a person’s neck on either side of the windpipe, but not to the windpipe itself, to stop the flow of blood to the brain via the carotid arteries.
Read that carefully. It shuts down the two arguments I hear most often about neck restraints.
The first sentence doesn’t require that breathing actually stop. “Sufficient pressure to a person to make breathing difficult or impossible” reaches pressure that merely hinders breathing or reduces intake of air. And the phrase “includes but is not limited to” means pressure to the neck, throat, or windpipe is an example of a choke hold, not the outer edge of the definition. A method that makes breathing difficult some other way is still covered.
The second sentence ends the distinction officers and trainers have historically drawn between an air choke and a blood choke. A vascular or carotid restraint — pressure “on either side of the windpipe, but not to the windpipe itself, to stop the flow of blood to the brain via the carotid arteries” — is expressly a choke hold under this statute. The technique departments used to teach as the safe alternative is inside the definition.
Clause (2), the hogtie prohibition, is drawn tightly: “tying all of a person’s limbs together behind the person’s back to render the person immobile.” Clause (3), unlike the other two, is defined by outcome rather than method — “securing a person in any way that results in transporting the person face down in a vehicle.” What matters under clause (3) is the position the person ends up in during transport, not the technique that got them there.
Where subdivision 3 came from, and what’s changed since
Subdivision 3 is new law, not a restatement. The Revisor’s history for § 609.06 shows subdivision 3 as new in 2020, enacted by Laws 2020, 2d Spec. Sess., ch. 1, § 8 — an act “relating to public safety” that also created the duty to intercede and report, revised the deadly-force statute, and prohibited warrior-style training. The section has been amended since: 2024 legislation amended subdivision 1 and added subdivision 4. Subdivision 3 itself hasn’t been amended since enactment.
Subdivision 4, the 2024 addition, provides that “[f]orce may not be used against another based on the discovery of, knowledge about, or potential disclosure of the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.” That one’s unconditional.
The warrior-style training prohibition
The companion provision is Minn. Stat. § 626.8434, and it aims upstream, at what officers are taught rather than what they do. Subdivision 1 defines the target:
For purposes of this section, “warrior-style training” means training for peace officers that dehumanizes people or encourages aggressive conduct by peace officers during encounters with others in a manner that deemphasizes the value of human life or constitutional rights, the result of which increases a peace officer’s likelihood or willingness to use deadly force.
Subdivision 2 bars the Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training from certifying a continuing education course “that includes warrior-style training,” from granting continuing education credit to an officer for such a course, and from reimbursing an agency or officer for it. Subdivision 3 is the flat prohibition: “A law enforcement agency may not provide warrior-style training, directly or through a third party, to a peace officer.”
Now look at what § 626.8434 doesn’t contain. There’s no penalty clause in the section, and no express private remedy. As written, it works through the Board’s certification, credit, and reimbursement functions and through a direct prohibition on agencies. The definitional language — “dehumanizes,” “deemphasizes the value of human life” — is also qualitative in a way that makes proof a real problem. Showing that a particular curriculum crossed that line is an evidentiary project, not a citation to a course catalog.
How I actually use these provisions
The restraint limits don’t stand alone. Minn. Stat. § 626.8452, subd. 1a, requires the Board’s model use-of-force policy to include a duty for officers “to only use deadly force including techniques that are restricted by section 609.06, subdivision 3, as authorized in section 609.066,” and requires that even then, “less lethal measures be considered first by the officer.” Paragraph (b) of that subdivision directs the Board to “incorporate all applicable standards in sections 609.06, subdivision 3, and 609.066,” and paragraph (c) required every chief law enforcement officer in the state to conform the agency’s own policy to the model. So the restraint limits are supposed to show up, in substance, in the written policy of every agency in Minnesota. That’s why the agency’s policy is one of the first documents I request in a restraint case.
Minn. Stat. § 626.8475 adds an officer-level duty: an officer must intercede when “present and observing another peace officer using force in violation of section 609.066, subdivision 2, or otherwise beyond that which is objectively reasonable under the circumstances” and is “physically or verbally able to do so,” and must report force exceeding “the degree of force permitted by law” in writing within 24 hours to the reporting officer’s chief law enforcement officer. A breach is subject to Board discipline.
One caution carries over from the deadly-force statute. Section 609.06 sits in the criminal code, and its text doesn’t create a civil cause of action or say that a violation establishes civil liability. Whether a violation of subdivision 3 matters in a damages case (as negligence per se, as evidence of the standard of care, or not at all) isn’t answered by the statute, and I didn’t locate controlling Minnesota appellate authority resolving that question while researching this article. Subdivision 3 of § 609.066 does supply one express civil rule: § 609.06, among other sections, “may not be used as a defense in a civil action brought by an innocent third party.” That’s a narrow provision about a defense, not a grant of a claim. A federal claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, meanwhile, is measured by the Fourth Amendment rather than by Minnesota’s statutes. That’s the two-standards problem I take up in my article on Graham v. Connor and objective reasonableness. If a city is a potential defendant on a state-law theory, the notice and immunity rules matter as much as the merits: see suing a Minnesota city and the exceptions to Minnesota’s municipal immunity.
About this firm
Madgett Law, LLC litigates civil rights and police misconduct claims in Minnesota state and federal court, alongside its personal injury and general litigation practice. If a restraint was used on you or on someone in your family and you’re trying to work out what the law required, I’ll look at it with you. Send us a message or call 612-470-6529.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 609.06, subd. 1 (opening clause and clause (1)), subd. 3(a)(1)–(3) and subd. 3(b), and subd. 4; § 609.06 Revisor history and “Recent History” entries (subd. 3 new, 2020 c 1 s 8; subd. 1 amended and subd. 4 new, 2024); Minn. Stat. § 609.066, subd. 1 (peace officer definition cross-reference), subd. 2(a) and 2(a)(1)(i)–(iii), and subd. 3; Minn. Stat. § 626.8434, subds. 1, 2(a)–(c), and 3; Minn. Stat. § 626.8452, subd. 1a(a)(3), (b), and (c); Minn. Stat. § 626.8475(a)–(c); Laws 2020, 2d Spec. Sess., ch. 1 (H.F. No. 1), act title. All statutory text: Office of the Revisor of Statutes, revisor.mn.gov.
This article is general information about Minnesota law. It is not legal advice, it does not create an attorney–client relationship, and it does not promise or imply any particular outcome. Statutes change; verify the current text before relying on it.