An investigation into the NYPD's use of chokeholds came following the death of Eric Garner and a number of other chokehold cases which had caused the department to probe deeper into how officers should be disciplined. The report also found that officers have used the banned chokehold as their first reaction when faced with a confrontation, prompting the need for further training of the officers and closing the gap between the NYPD and the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) when it comes to disciplining.
The chokehold report is the first high profile analysis that came from the inspector general which had to be delayed until after the funerals of Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos who were slain by a distraught civilian in a separate case on Dec. 20.
"After the tragic death of Eric Garner, and intense scrutiny of chokeholds, OIG-NYPD conducted a deep-dive into cases involving this prohibited tactic to explore and demystify how these complaints are addressed internally," said Inspector General Philip Eure. "Our targeted analysis revealed troubling deficiencies from the top-down that must be rectified."
The inspector general found in 10 recent cases wherein officers were involved in chokeholds that they received little or no discipline from their superior. Eure also questioned why the officers would use chokeholds as their "first act" against the citizens instead of confronting them verbally.
"These are pretty serious cases," said Eure. "Obviously, we are going to be looking at a broader sample of cases to see if it's more systemic. But people should be troubled by the disconnect that we determined exists already in the disciplinary process."
Eure's appointment as Inspector General occurred in May. The position, which is newly created by the department, had enabled Eure to probe on the 10 chokehold cases between 2008 and 2012. The report reveals that in each case, the NYPD ignored the CCRB's recommendation on seriously punishing the officer involved in a chokehold case. Instead, the involved officer was given either a "slap on the wrist," "instruction" on police policy, loss or reduction in the number of vacation leaves, or no punishment.
Eure's office further learned that the CCRB's disciplinary recommendations were routinely rejected by former Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.
"If you have the CCRB at one end of the process making specific recommendations about discipline and you have a police commissioner at the other end of the process undercutting those recommendations with lesser penalties or no penalties at all, there's a huge disconnect," said Eure.
