NYC police officer apprehended after chokehold arrest of black man
A white police officer in New York City has been arrested and charged with strangulation and attempted strangulation of a black man amid nationwide protests over police brutality against people of color.
Officer David Afanador was arrested on Thursday after videos emerged over the weekend which appeared to show him using an illegal chokehold to arrest the man on a boardwalk, according to police.
The videos captured his forceful arrest of Ricky Bellevue, 35, on the Rockaway Beach boardwalk in Queens on Sunday.
Four officers can be seen restraining Bellevue on his stomach with Afanador wrapping his arm around Bellevue's neck.
"Yo, stop choking him, bro!" a bystander screams as Bellevue falls limp. The black man was apprehended for being "disorderly" and was later hospitalized after briefly passing out in the officer's grip.
Afanador, 39, who had already been suspended from the New York Police Department without pay, turned himself in to be arrested at a police station house, the NYPD said.
He though pleaded not guilty at an initial court appearance, according to his lawyer Stephen Worth.
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz, whose office is prosecuting Afanador, issued a statement, saying her office has "zero tolerance for police misconduct."
Meanwhile, Worth said prosecutors were more focused on making a "splashy" arrest than carrying out a fair probe.
"It seems in this alternative universe that everyone's entitled to due process but police officers," Worth said.
If convicted on the most serious charge, Afanador would face up to seven years in jail.
Since 1993, chokeholds have been banned by the NYPD which said they can be deadly.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed legislation earlier this month that makes it a crime for officers to use the deadly tactic and similar neck restraints.
The move came as part of a package of police reform bills over the anti-racism protests across the country after the death of unarmed African American George Floyd in the city of Minneapolis a month ago.
Floyd died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes on May 25.
A video of the incident shows Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, kneeling on Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes as the 46-year-old was in handcuffs. "Please, please, I cannot breathe," Floyd can be heard in the video as Chauvin continues to kneel on his neck.
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