Mathews: Trapped in a 50-year-old chokehold

On October 6, 1976, LAPD pulled over 24-year-old Adolph Lyons for a burnt-out tail light. Four white officers, guns drawn, ordered him out of the car.

Lyons, unarmed, did not resist. Nevertheless, an officer put him in a chokehold so tight Lyons lost consciousness. He woke up on the ground, his underwear soiled, spitting blood and dirt. The police wrote him a traffic ticket and let him go.

But that wasn’t the end of the case.

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