Last week, the state Court of Appeals heard arguments in the now long-running case over a local law passed in the wake of George Floyd’s 2020 murder that made it a crime for NYPD officers to use chokeholds or otherwise dangerously block air or blood flow. Legal action brought by the Police Benevolent Association first resulted in the law being struck down by a local judge, and then reinstated by an appellate court. While the language of the law certainly isn’t perfect, the state’s highest court should now let it stand.
The police need to be able to do their jobs, a part of which is of course to engage in arrests with sometimes-uncooperative subjects who must be restrained. The law, obviously, can’t prevent them from engaging in this aspect of the job. Yet though we did suggest that the law be amended to make it clear that diaphragm compression be specifically reckless, the department and union’s representations of the text make it sound much vaguer than it really is.
It does not prohibit mild or incidental compression during routine arrests, but specifically states that it is unlawful to “restrain an individual in a manner that restricts the flow of air or blood by… sitting, kneeling, or standing on the chest or back in a manner that compresses the diaphragm.”
It’s silly to suggest this mandate is so over-broad as to be uninterpretable by a trained patrol officer, or at least we hope so. If there are people on the force who cannot recognize whether they are cutting off...
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