On Sunday, the New York Police Department suspended one of their police officers after footage showed him choking a black man during an arrest. The encounter caught on video from a cellphone camera showed the officer seemingly placing the victim in a chokehold, days after the technique had been made illegal.
Immediate actions
The black man, Ricky Bellevue, 35 years old, was being cared for inside a hospital in Queens on the evening of Sunday, said the executive director of Queens Defenders, Lori Zeno, who is also representing the victim, as reported by The New York Times.
In a tweet on Sunday evening, Dermot F. Shea, the New York Police Commissioner, wrote that after they have conducted an immediate investigation, they have suspended the officer seen choking the black man without pay.
Shea also revealed that while the full investigation is being conducted, they found it necessary to take quick actions. The commissioner also said they would be transparent with all the details of the incident as more information comes to light.
Before officials announced the suspension of the police officer, the department publicly released more than 30 minutes of footage from the involved officers' body cameras during the arrest. The videos show Bellevue being accompanied by two other men before the incident turned violent.
Officials announced that before the event at approximately 8:45 a.m., they received reports of complaints of a man making loud noises and yelling at people walking in Rockaway Park.
The three men were taunting the officers before Bellueve reaches his hand into a trash can and threatens the officers by saying "You scared, you scared?" as reported by the NY Daily News. One officer responded by quickly tackling Bellevue to the ground.
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Defending his fellowmen
With his body camera still recording, the officer who put the victim in a chokehold, David Afanador, tried to explain the situation to a woman at the scene.
Afanador revealed that the three men were openly taunting and threatening the officers and did not respond with violence and that the situation changed when one of the men tried to grab something from the trash can.
According to NBC News, several dozen protesters stood outside of the 100th Precinct at around 4:00 p.m. to call out against the officer's actions during the arrest.
Zeno announced that Bellevue lost consciousness due to the chokehold and went limp as seen in the video. When she saw him in the Precinct, he had blood on his head, and his wrists were swollen.
She added, "He was on such a hard chokehold that he couldn't speak to say he couldn't breathe."
Authorities had known the victim to be suffering from bipolar disorder and claimed the other two men with him were under alcoholic influence.
The New York State law had banned chokeholds from police encounters since it was passed two weeks ago. It also applies to any technique that blocks a person's ability to breathe.
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