You mean I nearly tore my arm out of its socket for nothing? :mad:
Uhm… they do if you’re double jointed (was she?).
A few years back I was volunteering for an opening ceremony and got to know some of the others fairly well. One day on lunch break we were talking random things and somehow it came out that one girl was double jointed and could move her hands, clasped behind her back, to the front over her head. She gave a demonstration.
Not a common ability, but it is possible. shudders at the memory of watching shoulders move in ways that are just wrong
I once watched a guy do exactly that. He was cuffed behind his back, and brought his arms over his head. He dislocated both his shoulders. He did the whole thing in one smooth motion like it was the most natural thing in the world, and then sat there smiling at me.
I smiled right back, knowing that when the PCP wore off he was going to be one sorry bastard.
I have a teenage cousin (a boy) who is very flexible (and does a lot of taekwondo) who can grasp his hands behind his back and then bring them over his head and in front of his body without letting go. No actual dislocation involved - he’s just that flexible.
Apparently in response to this story there was a film clip on Fox news a few days ago that showed some 20-ish chick handcuffed & going from hands behind back to hands in front over the top of her head. Took about 15 seconds of contortion, but nothing really outrageous.
The video looked amateur, like something on youtube. She was alone in the scene which appeared to be an apartment living room. The cuffs themselves appeared to be typical US-style, size & chain length. Couldn’t tell if they were professional or novelty, but it doesn’t matter for our purposes.
Two things I noted:
She was very skinny. The cuffs were loose enough on her wrists that she could twist her hands freely. I’d bet it’s not PD procedure to leave them loose like that. OTOH, On a skinny enough woman (or 12 year old girl) I’d imagine that the smallest they go would still leave her able to rotate her wrists freely in the cuffs. That rotation plays a key role in getting her arms over her head.
She was real flexible. Circus performer flexible.
Bottom line; pulling cuffs over the head can be done by some humans with some cuffs & some degree of looseness under some circumstances. Whether any of that is relevant to the dead woman I have no idea.
Actually, it happens all the time. This will usually only be for a few minutes at most, but I’ve left suspects handcuffed in a holding cell for quite a while on a few occasions. This usually happens when they are too uncooperative to continue with the booking process or I’m waiting for a second officer before removing the cuffs.
When someone is highly agitated (like this woman apparantly was), our policy (and all the departments I know about) require checks every 15 minutes, at a minimum. If they are bad enough, I’ve been known to sit in the cell with them the whole time to make sure they don’t hurt themselves.
As to the story, I’ve also heard that the woman was wearing shackles (also called a belly-chain). That would certainly give her enough chain to get her hands in front of her (if they weren’t properly secured) and even strangle herself.
I’ll be interested to hear the final report on this one.