New York lawmakers ban chokeholds

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Inspired by the protests sweeping the state and nation, New York legislative leaders on Monday began to approve an expansive package of bills targeting police misconduct, defying long-standing opposition from law enforcement groups, including police unions.

The measures range from a ban on the use of chokeholds to the repeal of an obscure decades-old statute that has effectively hidden the disciplinary records of police officers from public view, making it virtually impossible for victims to know whether a particular officer has a history of abuse.

The legislation marks one of the most substantial policy changes to result from the nearly two weeks of national unrest that followed George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, including in New York City, where tens of thousands of protesters participated in mostly peaceful marches to demand more police accountability.

The proposals signify a turning-point in Albany. Many of the policy changes being voted on this week languished for years because of opposition from influential police and corrections unions that contribute generously to the campaigns of elected officials — a tactic that had great effect in the state Senate, which has traditionally been under Republican control.

But Democrats assumed control of the full Legislature last year for the first time in nearly a decade, clearing the way for lawmakers to pass some of the law enforcement bills on Monday. Gov Andrew M Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, said Monday that he supported the bills and intended to sign them into law.

The pressure on elected officials to enact police reforms has reverberated across the nation.

Officials in Minneapolis moved to ban chokeholds and pledged to disband its police department. In Congress, Democrats plan to unveil expansive legislation this week to combat racial bias and excessive use of force by law enforcement.

On Sunday, Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed for the first time to cut funding for the New York Police Department.

The protests in New York, which in some cases included violent clashes between the police and demonstrators, sparked a groundswell of support that seemed unlikely just a few weeks ago, placing unavoidable pressure on state and city lawmakers who were already consumed with the deadly coronavirus outbreak.

In one such clash, a police officer was recorded on video shoving a female protester to the ground and was heard calling her a “bitch.”

The officer, who has been identified by elected officials as Vincent D’Andraia, is expected to be arrested on Tuesday and face prosecution by the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, according to three law enforcement officials.

D’Andraia, who has already been suspended without pay, is expected to face misdemeanour charges of assault, harassment and menacing over the May 29 incident, one of the officials said.

The protester, Dounya Zayer, 20, has said she suffered a concussion and seizures as a result of the attack.

The pending arrest lies in stark contrast to the aftermath of Eric Garner’s death on Staten Island after a police officer held him in a chokehold in 2014.

The New York City Council soon introduced a bill to criminalize chokeholds by the police; after a Staten Island grand jury refused to approve criminal charges against the officers involved in Garner’s death, the measure gained momentum.

But in December 2014, as anger against the police heightened, two police officers were assassinated in an attack that many officers thought had been inspired by anti-police rhetoric after Garner’s death. De Blasio, in danger of losing the support of the rank-and-file police and their unions, threatened to veto the legislation.

The bill, which has languished since, now has enough support to overcome a mayoral veto, and will come to a vote on June 18. It would make the use of chokeholds by members of the New York Police Department a misdemeanour punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

Rory I Lancman, a councilman from Queens and the primary sponsor of the city’s chokehold bill, said that when he saw video of Floyd’s death, he immediately recalled Garner’s death, and his repeated utterances of “I can’t breathe.”

“There was the same feeling of helplessness and wanting to jump in the screen and push that officer off him,” Lancman said.

Lancman’s bill has been expanded this year because of the way in which Floyd was killed. It will prohibit any action that “restricts the flow of air or blood by compressing the windpipe, diaphragm, or the carotid arteries” in the effort to make an arrest.

The state Legislature on Monday passed its own bill banning police chokeholds; the “Eric Garner Anti-Chokehold Act” characterises police chokeholds as “aggravated strangulation” and classifies that as a Class C felony.

Prosecutors would have to meet a higher threshold to charge an officer with a felony, compared to a misdemeanour, and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the officer’s intent was to block a person’s breathing in order to get a conviction. They could, theoretically, charge an officer with both a chokehold misdemeanour and felony.

But another policing bill has been even more contentious: State lawmakers received thousands of emails in recent days urging them to repeal a 1970s-era law in the state’s civil code known as 50-a, which prohibits the release of “all personnel records used to evaluate performance” of police officers without permission from the officer or a judge.

Under de Blasio, the New York Police Department fought in court to expand the interpretation of the law so that it shielded the results of disciplinary hearings against individual officers.