Journal of forensic and legal medicine
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The safety of placing suspects in the prone position following police use of force has been debated extensively, particularly in the context of sudden in-custody death. The proportion of individuals who remain in the prone position following police use of force is not known, nor has the epidemiology of sudden in-custody death in any position after police restraint been documented. Using a consecutive cohort of individuals in whom police used force, we prospectively documented the number of individuals who were placed in a prone versus not-prone position, and the prevalence of sudden in-custody death in either position. ⋯ One subject died in a not-prone position, no subjects died in the prone position. The sudden in-custody death rate following police use of force was low overall (0.08%, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.002, 0.44) and the difference in the proportion of subjects who died suddenly in either position was not significant at 0.14%, (95%CI = -0.8, 0.9). Our results indicate that prone positioning was common and was not associated with death in our cohort of consecutive subjects following police use of force.