A New York police officer was arraigned and charged Thursday for practicing a strangulation hold during an arrest, a practice recently made illegal in New York State, after the emotion caused by the death of George Floyd. Charged with strangulation and attempted aggravated strangulation, David Afanador faces up to seven years in prison, said the office of the prosecutor of Queens, Melinda Katz, in a statement.
The arrest, which took place on Sunday, was filmed by a passer-by with his smartphone, before the police published the images shot by the mini-cameras with which the police are equipped. We see three individuals, visibly intoxicated, verbally attack the police. After several minutes, one of them seems to grab a can lodged in a trash can.
Four officers threw themselves on him and David Afanador then practiced a choke hold lasting more than ten seconds. It seems that the man, who is black, then briefly loses consciousness. Presented to a judge in Queens, who formally served him his indictment, David Afanador was however left free.
A catch already prohibited …
Strangling was already prohibited by the New York police, but the Parliament of the State of New York, then the city council, have both passed laws in recent weeks making the practice an offense. The two assemblies echoed the emotion born of the death of George Floyd during his arrest by the Minneapolis police. The autopsy showed that it was the pressure exerted by the police on George Floyd’s chest and neck that caused his death.
In 2014, Eric Garner, another unarmed black man, died during his arrest in Staten Island, New York, in which another police officer practiced a strangulation hold. “Even under the most difficult of circumstances, this practice is exactly the type of conduct that the New York police have banned and that the (New York) Parliament has made a misdemeanor,” said prosecutor Katz, quoted in the statement. .
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