Updates below

A video posted to YouTube yesterday shows NYPD officers placing a man, already bound at the ankles, knees, and wrists, into what the uploader describes as a "body bag." It's unclear what took place before filming began, but a man identifying himself as the videographer, who asked to be referred to simply as Mike, says he shot it on the afternoon of March 18th at West 14th Street and Seventh Avenue in Manhattan. Mike wrote that he didn't see what precipitated the series of restraints, but that:

The man was maced and then pinned down by multiple officers and was clearly restrained well before the team determined that they needed to go as far as to wrap him FACE DOWN in a Body Wrap.

[...]

The team of ESU officers approx. 20 mins after wrapping the man up and setting his body against the wall, lifted the man while still in the bag onto a gurney, strapped and bound the bag to the gurney and then put him into an ambulance and carted him off. His head remained covered and tied inside the bag even as the gurney was put into the ambulance.

In the video, when the bag goes over the prisoner's head, Mike says, "Dude, that is the craziest shit I've ever seen done to somebody in my whole fucking life. Ho-ly shit. What do you even call that thing?"

A little research shows that what the officers are using is called an EDP bag, a device used to restrain emotionally disturbed people. A product description of a similar device being marketed to police departments says that the company HELGEN Industries first developed the bag for the NYPD's Emergency Service Unit. From the description:

The EDP Bag deploys in a split second and can be used to secure an EDP (emotionally disturbed person) in just moments. The fabric is strong and allows fluids to pass through, and can be cleaned and decontaminated easily after each use. Seven handles make it easy to manage and carry.

One police supply website is selling the bag for $752.88.

As far as the man in the video being fully zipped in, body-bag style, both an EDP Bag demonstration photo and a Daily News image of a man being restrained with one of the bags after holding his daughter hostage in the Bronx show the bag ending below the shoulders. Looking through the NYPD patrol guide, we couldn't find any guidelines specifically governing EDP bag use. Semi-relevant directives include:

Physical force will be used ONLY to the extent necessary to restrain the subject until delivered to a hospital or detention facility

and

...alternate restraining devices (Velcro straps, mesh restraining blankets, etc.) shall be used, at the earliest opportunity, to restrain or further restrain a subject whose actions or behavior may cause injury to himself/herself or others.

An NYPD spokeswoman declined to comment on whether there are specific rules for using the bags, but said, "The EDP restraint device is used by ESU when an EDP is violent and may cause harm to themselves or others."

The ESU responds to calls of armed barricaded people, mentally ill people, construction calamities, and other extreme situations. The unit has a troubled history when it comes to dealing with mentally ill people. In 2012, then-police commissioner Ray Kelly transferred unit head James Molloy after ESU officers responding to a call for an ambulance shot and killed Mohamed Bah, who was naked and allegedly brandishing a knife in his Harlem apartment.

ESU officers are supposed to contact friends and family members when dealing with barricaded, possibly mentally ill subjects, but instead just barged in on Bah and shot him eight times as they say he was trying to stab them. Similar situations sometimes result in the subjects' injury or even death.

Attorney David Rankin, who has made a career of suing the police for misconduct, said he has had clients who have been restrained in EDP bags, but that the way the bag was used was not at issue in those cases, and having the bag zipped over someone's head is a new one on him.

"It is not something I have heard of happening before," he said. "It does seem odd."

Update 2 p.m.:

Someone who identified himself as the one who shot the video had this reflection on the incident:

Regardless of what the man's crime was, there is absolutely no reason why after he was entirely restrained they needed to wrap him up in that burrito bag. It was disgusting to watch and terribly inhumane.

[...]

I don't have a problem with law enforcement and I very much support the NYPD on the whole but I do have a problem with inhumane tactics and from what I could tell this mad was being treated like an animal...not a human being.

Update 6:10 p.m.:

A source who works in the psychiatric emergency room of a New York City hospital informs us that the EDP bag is referred to in the business as a "burrito," and that she sees one used "on a weekly basis." She has not, since starting in December, seen one used to move someone, or to cover a patient's head. For spitters, she says, there are spit shields that can be used to cover the mouth.