Getting Away with Murder: How Cops Avoid Accountability for Criminal Acts

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/getting-away-murder-how-cops-avoid-accountability-criminal-acts



On October 7, the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board published a report that analyzes the use of chokeholds by NYPD officers over the past year. The report found that between July 2013 and June 2014, the CCRB received 219 chokehold complaints, the highest number seen since the period between 2006-2010 when over 200 chokehold complaints were being filed annually. This year, CCRB also received the highest relative level of chokehold complaints registered since 2001—7.6 out of every 100 use-of-force complaints were for chokeholds.

According to the NYPD Patrol Guide, the use of chokeholds against civilian suspects is illegal. This has been the case for more than 20 years.

A chokehold, as defined in the NYPD’s use-of-force policy, is “any pressure to the throat or windpipe, which may prevent or hinder breathing or reduce intake of air.” However, as the report points out, due to the NYPD and CCRB refusal to enforce the chokehold rule, the mandate was watered down. Instead of prohibiting officers from applying any pressure to the neck that “may” interfere with breathing, civilians hoping to register complaints must now be able to prove that the chokeholds they endured resulted in actual, sustained interference with breathing.

The report was commissioned this past July, following the death of 43-year-old Staten Island resident Eric Garner, whom NYPD officers placed in a chokehold while trying to book him for selling untaxed cigarettes. During the encounter, which was videotaped and went viral soon after, Garner shouted, “I can’t breathe” eleven times as officers continued to swarm around him. A medical examiner later confirmed that Garner’s death was a homicide—a direct result of being put in a chokehold.