Queens cop suspended for chokehold on Rockaway Beach boardwalk

In this photo taken from police body cam video, NYPD officers arrest a man on the Rockaway Beach boardwalk Sunday, June 21. Photo via NYPD/AP

By David Brand

An NYPD officer was immediately suspended without pay Sunday after cell phone video showed him using an apparent illegal chokehold to subdue a man on the Rockaway Beach boardwalk.

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea suspended the officer, David Afanador, and called the chokehold “disturbing.” 

“While a full investigation is still underway, there is no question in my mind that this immediate action is necessary,” Shea said.

Afanador was one of four officers who wrestled the man, Ricky Bellevue, to the ground on the concrete boardwalk near Beach 113th Street and Ocean Promenade Sunday morning. A bystander filmed the encounter with his cellphone and the NYPD later released officers’ body camera footage.

The Queens District Attorney’s Office has declined to prosecute Bellevue, the Daily News reported Monday. 

Earlier this month, the City Council voted to criminalize police chokeholds, which have long been prohibited by the NYPD. Officer Daniel Pantaleo used a banned chokehold to take down Eric Garner, who died as a result of the 2014 confrontation with police. Pantaleo was fired five years later.

Afanador was suspended at least one other time for excessive use of force, the AP reported. 

He was arrested in 2014 after he was seen on video using his gun to hit a 16-year-old boy during a marijuana bust. The beating continued until the boy dropped to the ground and was handcuffed. Afanador was suspended from the force until 2016, when he was acquitted of charges related to the incident, the AP reported. 

In a statement, U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks and Councilmember Donovan Richards, two local elected officials, condemned the chokehold, little more than a month after the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota set off nationwide protests. 

“The horrifying encounter captures exactly the behavior that we have marched into streets these recent weeks to reform,” Meeks and Richards said. “Law enforcement does not have the right to deny someone the ability to breathe.”