Rise in substantiated chokehold complaints in NYC points to need for better-defined chokehold ban

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.