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Police
watchdogs in New York City saw a significant increase in verified
complaints of police officers using a banned chokehold maneuver in 2014.
The
Civilian Complaint Review Board is an independent agency that handles
police misconduct grievances. While the number of chokehold-related
complaints the board receives hasn’t changed drastically over the past
few years, The New York Times reported this week
that the number of complaints it has been able to substantiate has
increased. Six out of the 222 chokehold complaints the board received
last year were substantiated, compared to two out of 197 the year
before. Between the years of 2009 and 2013, the board confirmed nine
chokehold complaints — only three more than in 2014 alone. And it just
confirmed a seventh in January.
The Times notes that, since the volume of complaints
hasn’t really wavered over the years, the rise in substantiated claims
can be attributed to changes in the board’s evaluation process under new
chairman Richard Emery. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed
Emery, a civil rights attorney, to head up the review board on July 17,
2014 — the same day a Staten Island man named Eric Garner died after a
New York police officer put him in a chokehold.
The new figures emphasize the same concerns brought
to light by Garner’s death about how often the chokehold is used by
police officers — not only in New York but in other cities and counties
where the maneuver is banned — and how that ban is enforced, if at all.
In the case of New York City, once a misconduct
complaint has been verified, the review board submits a recommendation
to the police commissioner for how the offending officers should be
punished. But, the Times reports, despite the fact that the review board
recommends harsh discipline (such as suspension or termination) in
most chokehold cases, officers who’ve violated the ban in recent years
have barely even been punished by the police department.
Attempting to examine New York’s situation through a
wider lens highlights an even bigger issue: There is no national data on
police use of banned chokeholds because there is no official,
comprehensive, nationwide database for complaints of police misconduct.
Even comparing the NYPD to other major police departments with similar
bans isn’t easy.
“There are about 200 oversight entities across the
country — at this point, most major police departments have some kind of
oversight — and they’re all different,” Brian Buchner, president of the
nonprofit National Association for Civilian Oversight for Law
Enforcement, said. “No two are exactly alike.”
Chicago and Los Angeles, for example, may seem
comparable because of their size and the fact that both police
departments have similar prohibitions on the use of suffocating
techniques, like the chokehold banned by the NYPD. But Buchner points
out that the drastic differences in how those cities handle complaints
of officer misconduct makes it impossible to compare them.
“In Chicago, a complaint will not be investigated if
the complainant does not sign an affidavit swearing to the truthfulness
of their complaint,” Buchner said. “In L.A., anyone can file a
complaint. It can be anonymous, it can be a third party, but the LAPD is
obligated to investigate them all."
The NYPD first issued a ban on the use of chokeholds in 1993
amid something of a nationwide movement to combat a rising number of
deaths in police custody — many of which were believed to have been
caused by variations of the potentially lethal chokehold maneuver.
But even as police departments around the country
proceeded to adopt similar prohibitions, each new ban varied greatly
from the last.
Chicago’s policy, which has only been in place since 2012, doesn’t even use the word “chokehold.” The LAPD,
on the other hand, first banned one version of the previously popular
mode of restriction in 1982 following a lawsuit. Today, Los Angeles
treats “carotid chokeholds,” a specific kind of restraint that applies
pressure to the neck on both sides, like any other deadly weapon: It's
permitted only when deadly force is needed and even then requiring the
same kind of review that would follow a police shooting.
Even though New York City’s ban has been in place for more than
two decades, Garner’s death — and the ensuing dispute over whether or
not the move that preceded it qualified as a chokehold — revealed
departmentwide confusion over what a chokehold even is. The Garner
fallout prompted law enforcement officials to consider broadening the
ban to include any type of neck pressure or to adopt something like the
Los Angeles model. New York City Council is even considering passing a law to criminalize chokeholds during an arrest, though de Blasio has already promised to veto it.
The continued public interest in police oversight following a summer strewn with high-profile deaths like Garner's
at the hands of police is sure to further illuminate the need for
comprehensive, nationwide law enforcement data. But in the case of the
chokehold ban, it seems that New York police can’t be compared to those
in other cities, let alone to one another, until everyone understands
what the “chokehold ban” really means.
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