NYPD cop is suspended without pay after bodycam footage appeared to show him using a chokehold on a suspect – eight days after it was banned
- The incident occurred on Sunday along the boardwalk on Rockaway Beach
- Two white men argued with the officers until the tussle ensued
- A black man standing nearby approached officers and was slammed to the floor
- While he was being handcuffed the two white men are yelling he can’t breathe
- The black man is then helped to his feet and walks, in cuffs, to the ambulance
New York Police Department has suspended an officer for slamming a black man to the floor on Sunday and putting him in a chokehold – eight days after Governor Andrew Cuomo banned the tactic.
The man, who gave his name to officers as Kevin Green, was standing with two white men on the boardwalk at Rockaway Beach.
The two white men were filming the officers, jeering at them and encircling them.
When Green, 35, gets close to the officer bodycamera footage shows him being flung to the floor.
The man, who gave his name as Kevin Green, 35, from Rockaway, was held in a chokehold
Green was thrown to the floor after confronting officers on Rockaway Beach in New York
Photos from the scene appear to show Green being held in a chokehold.
Dermot Shea, commissioner of NYPD, said the officer involved had been suspended.
‘Accountability in policing is essential,’ he said.
‘After a swift investigation by the Internal Affairs Bureau, a police officer involved in a disturbing apparent chokehold incident in Queens has been suspended without pay.
‘While a full investigation is still underway, there is no question in my mind that this immediate action is necessary.
‘We are committed to transparency as this process continues.’
Green, who lives with his twin brother in Rockaway, is overheard telling the officers he is bipolar and asthmatic.
The police seem familiar with him.
Two white men are seen in bodycam footage jeering at the police as Green looks on
Green then comes close up to the officers – who claim he was threatening them
‘This is what you do to a black man on Father’s Day?’ he says after he is led to an ambulance.
‘This is what you do in America? I’m born in America.
‘You’re not here to help us. You’re here to kill us. I always get beat up by the police.’
While he is being looked at by the EMT, a woman yells: ‘Do you not see that they are mentally ill, as well as he is? This is foolish.’
An officer approaches him and says: ‘Ma’am. They were all acting crazy, right.’
She replies: ‘So how are they not all being detained?’
He says: ‘Let me finish. They are all obviously intoxicated. We know he has a mental history, past. We know he’s bipolar. They were all talking all types of crazy stuff to us, we did nothing, I don’t care – anybody can say whatever they want to us.
‘What changed everything is when he grabbed something and squared up and was going to hit my officer, who’s standing over there. That’s when everything changed.
‘The minute I saw him flex on him, that’s when he goes down. Because we don’t get hurt and we’re not going to leave somebody violent out here who might do that to one of you, or another innocent person.
‘And that’s why he’s in cuffs, and why he’s going to the hospital, because we know he’s ill.
‘The other two were being loud, aggressive, and we don’t like the way they are acting. But they are not acting like they were going to hurt anybody.
She suggests that he was arrested for calling the officers ‘a white piece of s***.’
He continues: ‘If we arrested every person who called me a white piece of s*** I’d have to lock up half the beach.
‘Somebody who is not being violent, we’ll allow you to have your First Amendment rights and go home.
‘Somebody who acts differently towards us or the public, that’s it and we’ll have to take you into custody.’