NYPD Chokehold Complaints Overwhelmingly Filed By People Of Color

NEW YORK CITY — A trove of NYPD misconduct cases shows nearly 90 percent of chokehold complaints filed against cops were made by people of color.

A handful of officers also faced repeated complaints claiming they used the banned chokehold, according to the ProPublica database.

The database sheds further light on complaints against NYPD officers accused of using the chokehold, which has been at the forefront of calls for police reform since Eric Garner repeated "I can't breathe" with an officer's arm around his neck in Staten Island.

Mayor Bill de Blasio recently signed a local anti-chokehold bill into law while acknowledging police concerns over it.

"I believe we can find a way to hear those real concerns, to keep people safe, to retrain our officers the right way," he said.

But 18 police unions recently filed a lawsuit over New York City's newly-enshrined anti-chokehold law. Another state law banned the police chokehold, and the unions claim the city measure goes too far by prohibiting cops from compressing a suspect's diaphragm.

That's not the same as a chokehold, but the unions — and some NYPD officials — argued the law could still restrict their arrest techniques and scare cops away from action altogether.

The chokehold itself has been prohibited by the NYPD since 1993, but the ProPublica database of Civilian Complaint Review Board cases indicates that cops are still using it — and overwhelmingly against certain people.

People of color filed 215 chokehold complaints against NYPD cops out of 244 total cases, according to the data.

That's 88 percent of all the chokehold complaints.

The CCRB substantiated 44 chokehold complaints against NYPD officers in cases going back to 2005, the data shows. Of those, 20 were made by Black complainants and 15 were lodged by Hispanic complainants.

"Substantiated" in CCRB lingo means the board found credible evidence to believe that the officer committed the act without legal justification.

Most chokehold cases — 199 — were listed as "unsubstantiated," meaning the CCRB couldn't confirm they happened or violated the rules. Just one case was listed as an exoneration.

The ProPublica database only includes officers who had at least one substantiated accusation against them. That means the 223 cops who faced a chokehold complaint in the ProPublica data also had a substantiated accusation of misconduct against them, whether chokehold or not.

Three cops in particular — Lt. Paul Gaglio, Detective Charles Gove and Officer Malachi Mckenith — had three chokehold complaints each, the most of any other NYPD officers.

Gaglio used a forbidden chokehold against an 11-year-old Hispanic girl, according to the data. It was the second and only substantiated of the three chokehold complaints lodged against him.

Gove put a 15-year-old Black boy in a chokehold, for which he too was sanctioned, the data shows. The other two chokehold complaints against him were found to be "unsubstantiated."

Mckenith separately faced complaints from three Black boys — two of whom were 13 — but none were substantiated.

Patch reached out to Gaglio, Gove and Mckenith for comment, as well as the NYPD.

The NYPD responded with statement referring to a court case over a recently-repealed records law.

"While we remain committed to increased transparency, we are equally committed to due process," the statement reads. "While recent legislation repealed NYS Civil Rights Law Section 50a, a federal judge issued a restraining order prohibiting the release of records of which allegations against our officers were found to be false, unfounded or unsubstantiated."

The ProPublica data doesn't list every suspected police chokehold case. For instance, Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who put Eric Garner in a fatal chokehold, isn't listed in the database.

Find a full list of accusations against each precinct, or individual officers, by searching the database here.