Grand Jury Tosses NYPD Chokehold Case, But Civil Suit Looms

New York City NY

15 September, 2021

2:42 PM

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NEW YORK CITY — A former NYPD police officer dodged criminal charges on accusations that he used an illegal chokehold on a Black man during a 2020 arrest in Queens. Grand jurors Tuesday declined to indict David Afanador, who faced a strangulation charge. Afanador stood accused of illegally pressing his arm into the neck of Ricky Bellevue, 35 — a June 2020 incident in Far Rockaway that was caught on viral video. Bellevue's attorney Sanford Rubenstein called himself disappointed in the grand jury's decision, but said a civil case — which has a different burden of proof — will now go forward. He said he also wrote to a U.S. Attorney asking them to open a federal criminal case based on potential civil rights violations. "It's not over until it's over," Rubenstein said. The incident occurred in broad daylight on a Rockaway boardwalk just weeks after the murder of George Floyd and a national reckoning over race and policing. Bellevue heckled police officers that morning, asked if they were scared and reached into a trash can to grab something, as seen on body camera footage released by the NYPD. The cop wearing the body camera rushed forward and grabbed Bellevue, and the cops wrestled him to the ground. "Stop choking him, bro!" a bystander could be heard shouting as Afanador appeared to press his arm into Bellevue's neck. Bystander footage prompted outrage. Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz opted not to charge Bellevue — who has a history of mental illness — and turned her attention to Afanador. She levied a strangulation charge against Afanador — the first illegal chokehold charge against a police officer under a change in the law following Floyd's death. Katz, after the grand jury declined to indict Afanador, pledged to give as much transparency to their decision as legally allowed. "While the law prohibits me from discussing the proceedings that took place in front of the grand jury, in the interest of transparency I am moving to have the minutes of the grand jury hearings unsealed," she said in a statement. Rubenstein supported the move. "We believe transparency is important here," he said.