The U.S. Justice Department has placed new limits on the use of chokeholds and no-knock warrants by federal law enforcement agencies, the department announced on Tuesday. 
 
The agency said in a statement it had issued “policies explicitly prohibiting the use of ‘chokeholds’ and ‘carotid restraints’ unless deadly force is authorized.” 
 
The circumstances in which federal law enforcement officers can make “unannounced entries” into peoples’ has also been curtailed. 
 
The announcement was made after a review of the department’s law enforcement agencies, including the FBI. 
 
“Building trust and confidence between law enforcement and the public we serve is central to our mission at the Justice Department,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in the statement. “The limitations implemented today on the use of ‘chokeholds,’ ‘carotid restraints’ and ‘no-knock’ warrants, combined with our recent expansion of body-worn cameras to DOJ’s federal agents, are among the important steps the department is taking to improve law enforcement safety and accountability.” 
 
The use of aggressive restraint practices by law enforcement became even more controversial in the U.S. following the death of an African American man named George Floyd, who died in May 2020 after white police officer Derek Chauvin pinned his knee on the back of his neck for more than nine-and-one-half minutes as he repeatedly cried out that he could not breathe. 
 
Two months earlier, white plainclothes police officers in Louisville, Kentucky, fatally shot Breonna Taylor, an African American woman, during a disastrous raid on her apartment with a no-knock warrant. 
 
Floyd’s death, captured on cellphone video by a bystander, inspired global protests against institutional racism and police practices, particularly in the U.S. 
 
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