The police officer who was filmed putting a man in an illegal chokehold has surrendered to authorities. Officer David Afanador turned himself in at the Queens District Attorney's Office on Thursday morning and was charged with strangulation and attempted strangulation.
On Sunday, Afanador and other officers were on the boardwalk in the Rockaways, when a group of men became upset that police were monitoring them and taunted the officers. At one point, the officers approached one of the men, Ricky Bellevue, and tackled him. Video shows Officer Afanador putting his arm around Bellevue's neck and apparently choking him, prompting a witness to yell, "Yo, stop choking him, bro....Yo, he's choking him, let him go, bro," while another says, "He's out, he's out. Look, look officer, look at this, he's out."
Bellevue appears to lose consciousness in one bystander's video; footage from a police body camera later shows him conscious, receiving attention at an ambulance.
Afanador, a 15-year NYPD veteran, was suspended without pay immediately after footage of the incident was made public. He has been the subject of numerous lawsuits and complaints during his NYPD career, including the 2014 beating an unarmed teenager who was accused of selling marijuana. The Brooklyn DA charged Afanador with assault, criminal possession of a weapon, and official misconduct charges following that incident, but Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Danny Chun found him not guilty in 2016.
The Queens DA, Melinda Katz, declined to charge Bellevue.
Earlier this month, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed legislation to make police chokeholds illegal.
