NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — A family friend of Eric Garner Jr., whose 2014 chokehold death by police became an early rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement, is suing the NYPD over the use of the same banned restraint against him.
Reynaldo Jimenez told The New York Daily News he was worried he was going to die in July 2019 after officers put him in a similar restraint at a Brownsville, Brooklyn barbeque with friends.
The 27-year-old said officers approached them and saw a bag belonging to one of his friends. His friend then tried to grab the bag from a cop, causing a fight that ripped the bag open — spilling candy to the ground.
Jimenez said officers reportedly yelled for the group to step back, "pushed" him to the middle of the street, while he was holding his friend "back."
“I say, ‘Listen, I got him. He just real angry right now. I’m gonna take him out this area,” he said.
Jimenez argued cops ignored him and jumped on top of him and his friend — forcing Jimenez on the hood of a car. One officer reportedly grabbed his left hand while another grabbed his right.
A third officer then grabbed him by the neck and reportedly placed him in a chokehold for 30 seconds to a minute.
“I was totally in disbelief that this was actually happening. It’s one thing to watch it and another thing to actually be a victim of it,” he told the Daily News.
Jimenez said the experience was like an "adrenaline rush."
"At the moment when he was choking me that’s why I just fell into the officer, let him take me down because the longer I was holding myself up, the more I was losing air,” he added.
He was first charged with assault against an officer, but his lawyer said those charges were soon dismissed.
William Igbokwe, Jimenez lawyer, told the Daily News use of the illegal chokehold against Garner's friend was not coincidental.
"It actually is not a coincidence because this type of violent interaction between cops and Black men and other people of color happens so frequently that it was bound to come full circle to affect someone close to the Garners again," Igbokwe said.
The NYPD declined to comment on the Daily News' story about Jimenez's lawsuit.