Man catcher

Man catcher
  • Top left: Swedish fire-watchmen [Brandvakt] with man catchers, Stockholm, 1822.
  • Top right: Nightly troublemaker who has ended up in the night guard's man catcher, 19th century Sweden.
  • Bottom left: Demonstration of an early modern Swedish man catcher against a mannequin's head.
  • Bottom right: Early modern Swedish man catcher with locking arms.

A man catcher (compare German: Menschenfänger), also known as catchpole, is a capture tool for law enforcement work and similar. It is a form of polearm, consisting of a long shaft equipped with a semicircular arc at one end, intended to be thrust against an opposing individual, with the aim of encircling their waist, limbs, or neck, followed by further thrusts to push the captured person up against a wall or the ground in order to limit and lock their ability to move and escape.

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