Body camera damaged after Queens cop appears to kneel on man’s neck: attorney

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A Queens officer appeared to kneel on the neck of a man during an arrest in Jamaica Jan. 3. Image via cell phone video

A Queens officer appeared to kneel on the neck of a man during an arrest in Jamaica Jan. 3. Image via cell phone video

By David Brand

Five weeks after a Queens cop appeared to kneel on a man’s neck during an arrest in Jamaica, prosecutors say the officer’s body-worn camera may have been “run over by a vehicle,” rendering the footage obsolete.

Cell phone videos of the arrest appear to show 113th Precinct Officer Thomas Montario kneeling against the neck of Sircarlyle Arnold, 34, while bystanders scream for Montario to remove his knee. Arnold, a Long Island resident, was arrested while driving his ATV during a memorial ride for a deceased friend. He is charged with misdemeanor reckless endangerment, four traffic offenses and misdemeanor marijuana possession.

Arnold’s attorney Olayemi Olurin said she started trying to obtain the officer’s body-worn camera footage from the Queens District Attorney’s Office on Jan. 4 as part of the discovery phase of the case.

She said the prosecutor, Daniel O’Leary, eventually informed her by email on Feb. 10 that the camera had become “dislodged and damaged” or “run over by a vehicle” and did not record the arrest.

“He never mentioned anything being wrong with the footage before,” she said. “No issues of any kind and suddenly, after multiple requests, he sends me an email that there’s no visual on the footage from the officer who was kneeling on my client’s neck.”

A spokesperson for the Queens District Attorney’s Office said the office does not comment on ongoing investigations. 

Arrest maneuvers that restrict someone’s ability to breath, such as administering a chokehold or kneeling on a person’s neck, have been banned by the NYPD. New York City criminalized the illegal restraints in the wake of weeks of demonstrations following the police killing of George Floyd last year.

Queens DA Melinda Katz previously charged a Queens police officer with strangulation following an arrest in June 2020, shortly after the new law took effect.

Arnold’s criminal complaint states that he was driving his ATV, also known as a quad, “in circles in the roadway, causing a public disturbance and shutting down northbound and southbound traffic.”

Arnold “swung the quad so close to the officer that he had to jump out of the way to avoid being struck,” the complaint continues.

Montario is named as the arresting officer in the criminal complaint, but was not initially identified as the man who appears to kneel on Arnold’s neck. Olurin confirmed that Montario is the man seen in the video.

Video of Arnold’s arrest reached Mayor Bill de Blasio a few days later. He tweeted Jan. 7 that he was “deeply disturbed” and had ordered the NYPD to conduct a “full investigation” into the restraint and arrest Three weeks later, when questioned by the Eagle, de Blasio said the NYPD had placed the officer — later confirmed to be Montario — on modified duty pending the probe

An NYPD spokesperson said there were “no updates at this time.”

A 19-second video that Olurin posted on Twitter Jan. 6 shows the intense arrest scene, with the officer appearing to kneel on Arnold’s neck. Arnold was pinned to the ground at the time and onlookers are heard demanding that the officer remove his knee.

“Why you got your knee on his face?” a man shouts in the video.

“Look at his knee,” the same man repeats nine times. “Look at his knee on his neck.”

“Take your knee off,” another woman screams.

A separate 64-second clip shows the officer kneeling on Arnold’s neck as a large, frantic crowd forms. The video then shows three cops, two without masks, pinning Arnold to the pavement near the curb.

The Eagle posted the second video on YouTube after receiving the file last month. 

On Feb. 18, an investigator from the Civilian Complaint Review Board contacted the Eagle to inquire about the video as part of an investigation. The investigator, Christopher Anderson, said he could not confirm whether a formal complaint had been filed against Montario.

A CCRB spokesperson said the agency could not yet fulfill a Freedom of Information Law request seeking Montario’s disciplinary records despite an appellate court’s Feb. 16 ruling that said such files could be released.

A search of ProPublica’s Civilian Complaint Review Board complaint tool and Legal Aid’s CapSTAT police lawsuit database did not yield any complaints or lawsuits filed against Montario.

Additional reporting by Rachel Vick.