02/12/1993
   CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) -- Four white officers were suspended
with pay a week after the choke-hold death of a black truck driver
who had been stopped on suspicion of drunken driving.
   The suspension came after black leaders complained.
   "We're trying to keep a lid on things," Chief Deputy Jim Hammond
said Thursday. "There are absolutely no facts to indicate that
there's ... any type of racism involved."
   The Hamilton County sheriff's department initially had declined
to take any action against the officers involved in the death of
Larry Isaac Powell, who died Feb. 5 after he was put in a police
choke hold.
   Charles Love, president of the Chattanooga Urban League, said it
was unfortunate that it took a meeting with black leaders to get
something done.
  "Nonetheless, it's the step in the right direction," he said.
   The town of Soddy-Daisy will not suspend two of its officers who
were involved because they acted "in accordance with the training
that they received at the state police academy," said City Attorney
Sam Elliot.
   The Soddy-Daisy officers are also white. The suspended officers
are employed by the county. None has been identified.
   Hamilton County Medical Examiner Frank King has ruled the death a
homicide.
   "His heart went into an irregular heartbeat caused by the
pressure on his neck, which was obviously committed by one of the
officers," Hammond said Wednesday. "That was the direct cause of
death."
   The case is being investigated by five law enforcement agencies
including the FBI and the federal Justice Department's civil rights
division, Hammond said.
   Powell, 39, was driving along a two-lane highway in rural
Hamilton County, about 10 miles north of Chattanooga, when he was
stopped.
   He cooperated until he failed sobriety tests and was told he was
under arrest, Hammond said.
   Powell, 6-foot-1 and 270 pounds, allowed two officers to handcuff
him, with his hands in front because of his size, but he began
fighting them when they tried to put him in a patrol car, Hammond
said.
   Two types of restraining holds were alternately used to subdue
Powell, a former heavyweight boxer. Hammond said one officer held a
24-inch wooden nightstick on the back of Powell's neck while another
used a manual "V-hold" or choke hold.
  Choke holds, banned in many states, reduce blood flow to the brain
  and heart.