Eric Garner's Death Dominates NYPD Oversight Board Meeting

Jon Campbell

The Civilian Complaint Review Board, an independent agency charged with reviewing complaints from the public about the NYPD, held its first meeting with new chair Richard Emery last night.
Emery was appointed last month by Mayor Bill de Blasio -- the CCRB had been without a chair since January, something de Blasio took some criticism for -- just ahead of wave of high profile cases of apparent police brutality by the NYPD.

Garner, 43, was killed during an encounter with the NYPD on July 17, when a Staten Island officer used a long-outlawed chokehold to subdue him during an arrest. The officers suspected him of selling untaxed cigarettes.

Shortly after Garner's death -- which was caught on film, and prompted bitter criticism of the NYPD -- the CCRB announced plans to release a report on chokehold allegations brought to the board in the past few years. It emerged only after Garner's death that the board had received more than 1,022 citizen complaints about the use of chokeholds by NYPD officers, despite the fact that the technique has been officially banned for more than 20 years.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2014/08/eric_garner_case_dominates_nypd_review_board_meeting.php