No indictment in 1st case under NY’s police chokehold ban

By MICHAEL R. SISAK
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — A case seen as an early test of New York’s law criminalizing police chokeholds has ended without an indictment. A Queens grand jury on Tuesday declined charges for David Afanador, a former New York City police officer who was seen on cellphone video last year putting his arm around a man’s neck on the Rockaway Beach boardwalk. The June 2020 confrontation happened less than a month after the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd and just nine days after the state’s chokehold ban was signed into law as part of a package of police reforms. Afanador’s lawyer, Stephen Worth, said Tuesday they were “gratified” with the decision. Rev. Kevin McCall, who is organizing a protest Wednesday, called it a “misfortune of justice.”