NYPD Chokehold Complaints Rising

One police officer described it as a headlock. Others called it a “yoke hold” or a “face lock.” All denied using a chokehold, banned for two decades by the New York Police Department, as they restrained suspects on the street.

 

But even after the Civilian Complaint Review Board found that each officer had indeed employed the hold, none received serious punishment.

 

In a new report analyzing more than 1,100 chokehold complaints, the review board offers a reason: In the department’s disciplinary proceedings room, and in the board’s own investigations, the very definition of a chokehold had narrowed significantly.

 

As a result, a banned practice appeared to spread, the report found, and a disciplinary process meant to head off wrongdoing “failed to hold officers accountable” as complaints over the use of force increasingly included allegations of chokeholds.

 

The 140-page report, released on Tuesday afternoon, was prompted by the death of Eric Garner, a Staten Island man who died in July after an officer restrained him with a chokehold as other officers wrestled him to the ground.

 

Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement that the report “makes clear the need for the N.Y.P.D. to re-evaluate its disciplinary proceedings in an effort to better enforce the chokehold prohibition and hold officers accountable.”

 

The review is the board’s most significant undertaking since Richard D. Emery, a civil rights lawyer, was named to lead the oversight body in July. It represents an attempt by Mr. Emery, a longtime friend of Commissioner William J. Bratton’s, to thrust the board into the city’s debate over policing.