Cop On Leave After Video Shows Him Choking 17-Year-Old Boy
It’s hard to have faith in law enforcement when they consistently show an inability to de-escalate tense situations or control their temper. In New York, a Haverstraw cop is on leave after surveillance video showed him choking a 17-year-old boy.
According to CBS News, the incident happened Aug. 3 in Downtown Haverstraw, a town in Rockland County, New York, north of New York City. The 17-year-old, identified as Andres Garcia, is seen sitting on his bike in the surveillance footage. There’s no audio in the footage, but Garcia appears to be speaking to the unidentified officer when the officer suddenly grabs him by the neck and pins him against a storefront window.
“The kid told him straight up, ‘You’re not my father,’ and the cop lost it and basically did what he did,” Jean Poulard, a witness to the incident, told CBS.
I can’t imagine being a grown man getting triggered over a kid saying, “You ain’t my daddy.” Sure, it may have been a little disrespectful, but it was also a factual statement. You’re going to choke a kid for simply stating facts? Couldn’t be me.
Garcia spoke to News 12 Westchester shortly after the incident occurred. “It was a blur. I didn’t expect him to strangle me like that,” Garcia told News 12.
Garcia said he was at the bodega because he heard a friend of his had been arrested and wanted to know why. “Last night I kept on rewatching the video and I cried to it. I was traumatized,” he told News 12. Garcia wants an apology and for the Haverstraw cop to be retrained.
Local citizens told News 12 they believed the officer went too far. “There’s a difference between doing your job and excessive force. I think they take it too far,” local resident Robert Vasquez told News 12.
Town Supervisor Howard Phillips Jr. condemned the officer’s actions in a statement sent to News 12.
“There were numerous violations that evening ranging from disorderly conduct to local ordinance violations. This occurred after the Latin Festival ended which sent a large population into the downtown area of the Village of Haverstraw. The matter is currently under investigation. The Chief of Police with the Town Attorney will be questioning all the officers and any individuals in the public involved in the incident,” Phillips’ statement read.
The footage shows a large group of officers surrounding Garcia after the officer began choking him, but it didn’t look like they were trying to get the officer to stop. “One of the officers’ clips came out of his holster, fell on the ground. With that, another officer yelled, ‘Gun,'” Phillips told CBS.
So, homie dropped an ammo clip and all the other cops assumed the kid who was being choked had drawn a gun? So these people aren’t just incapable of controlling their temper, they’re also blatantly incompetent.
According to Philips, there were 59 people arrested that night, including Garcia. He said that the officers were overwhelmed, but that didn’t excuse the actions of the officer.
It’s been a bad week for first responders in New York. Last week, Long Island residents were outraged after a fire chief was seen telling a 10-year-old on a stretcher to “Shut the f—k up.” Maybe the reason Black people have a hard time trusting first responders is because so often the badge is worn by people who have no business wearing it.
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