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NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – An NYPD officer was released without bail after being arrested and charged with strangulation on Thursday was for putting a suspect in what the police commissioner said was a banned chokehold in Queens last weekend, police said.
According to his attorneys, David Afanador was released without bail as long as he has no contact with Ricky Bellevue, the man he's accused of putting in chokehold.
"That officer should have been held with other criminals in the justice system," Reverend Kevin McCall told reporters. "Because that day, that's what he acted like. A criminal."
Officer David Afanador was arrested and charged with attempted strangulation and strangulation on Thursday morning, the NYPD said.
State lawmakers recently passed the Eric Garner Anti-Chokehold Act, which makes the use of a police chokehold a felony.
Afanador was acquitted in a previous case stemming from allegations he pistol-whipped a teenage suspect in Brooklyn and broke two of his teeth.
The police department moved quickly to suspend Afanador without pay after Sunday's confrontation. Commissioner Dermot Shea announced his suspension just hours after video was posted on social media and called the swift action a sign of "unprecedented times."
"I think we have an obligation to act swiftly but we also have to get it right and to inform the public about what's going on," Shea told TV station NY1 on Monday.
It's at least the second time Afanador has been suspended from the force. The officer was sidelined after his 2014 arrest, only to return to duty after a judge acquitted him and his partner of all charges in 2016.
In that case, Afanador was seen on video using his gun to hit a 16-year-old boy during a marijuana bust. The beating continued until the boy dropped to the ground and was handcuffed. That altercation, which came six weeks after the police chokehold death of Eric Garner, also made headlines.
Afanador was involved in eight incidents that were the subject of complaints to the city's police watchdog agency since joining the police department in 2005, according to records obtained Monday under a new state law making disciplinary files public.
They ranged from using discourteous language to using physical force and refusing to seek medical treatment. All of the allegations to the city's Civilian Complaint Review were either unsubstantiated or led to exoneration except for the ones stemming from the altercation that led to his arrest.
In Sunday's incident, in the wake of protests over George Floyd's killing by police in Minneapolis, a video shot by one of the men involved in the altercation showed officers tackling a Black man and Afanador putting his arm around the man's neck as he lay face down on the boardwalk. Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz has declined to prosecute any charges against the man.
Body camera footage released later by police showed that for at least 11 minutes before the arrest, three men were shouting insults at the police while the officers implored them to walk away.
"You had four officers engaged with three gentlemen on the boardwalk for probably 10 to 20 minutes exercising extreme restraint," Shea said, testifying at a hearing on recent clashes between police officers and protesters.
"I think people should be condemning the acts, in my opinion, of the individuals — the language they used," Shea continued. "I feel most bad for the people that have to walk by on that boardwalk. But at the end of that story, an officer, put his hand around a person's neck, and that (officer) was dealt with swiftly and was suspended."
Chokeholds have long been banned by the NYPD and their use has been especially fraught since Garner died in 2014 after an officer put him in a chokehold while trying to arrest him. Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week signed a statewide ban on police chokeholds.
"This was some of the worst rioting that occurred in our city in recent memory," Shea said. He commended officers for their performance "in policing these protests, ending the riots and upholding the rule of law."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
