Holden tries to repeal new police chokehold penalty, four months after passage

Mayor Bill de Blasio signed legislation that makes police chokeholds a criminal misdemeanor in July. Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office

By David Brand

Four months after 47 of his 50 colleagues voted to pass legislation criminalizing illegal police chokeholds, Councilmember Robert Holden wants a do-over.

Holden introduced a bill Thursday that would repeal a new section of administrative code that penalizes police officers with a misdemeanor if they are found to have administered a chokehold or compressed a person’s diaphragm. The strict chokehold ban has encountered opposition from police groups who say officers worry they will be punished for making difficult arrests.  

“The reckless, so-called chokehold/diaphragm ban makes it impossible for our police officers to safely apprehend a violent suspect and puts our police as well as the innocent bystanders, in unnecessary danger while making our entire city less safe,” Holden said.

The bill is backed by four of Holden’s conservative colleagues, including Queens Councilmember Eric Ulrich, and would be retroactive to July 15. Various law enforcement groups, including the Police Benevolent Association, also support the legislation.

Earlier this month, State Supreme Court Justice Laurence Love denied a motion for an injunction to block the law that was filed by the PBA and other unions.

The chokehold bill passed the Council in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man who suffocated under the knee of an officer in Minneapolis. The bill was signed into law by Mayor Bill de Blasio in July.

Sponsor Rory Lancman first introduced the measure in 2014, following the police chokehold killing of Eric Garner in Staten Island.

Councilmembers have weighed amending the measure to remove the ban on the compression of diaphragms, but have not voted to change the law. 

“There hasn’t been a single example of an officer being unfairly prosecuted or unable to arrest,” Lancman said in August, amid reports that police were making less arrests as a result of the new measure.

Lancman said changing the law “to appease a police union work slowdown [would] eviscerate not just the law itself, but the rule of law and the legitimacy of the City Council as an institution capable of overseeing the NYPD.”