NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City police officer who was the first prosecuted under a local law banning chokeholds and some other methods of restraint was convicted Thursday.
Omar Habib was convicted of the misdemeanor established in the law that was passed after George Floyd ‘s killing, along with felony strangulation and misdemeanor assault, and is facing up to seven years in prison, news outlets reported.
Habib has also been dismissed from the New York Police Department. He had previously been suspended without pay.
Bronx Criminal Supreme Court Judge Cynthia Isales ordered him held without bail, according to the New York Daily News.
Habib, who joined the department in 2007, was responding to a 911 call at a Bronx catering hall in 2023 when a drunk and disorderly man resisted arrest, Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said. Habib placed the man in a chokehold so tight it impeded his breathing and circulation and made him pass out, according to the district attorney.
Jacob Z. Weinstein, Habib’s attorney, argued during the trial that other factors could have caused the man to pass out, including drinking without eating enough food.
Patrick Hendry, president of a New York police union, said the verdict was “further proof of a grim reality: every second police officers spend on this job puts them at risk of criminal prosecution, and pervasive anti-police propaganda has made it incredibly difficult to receive a fair trial,” according to the New York Daily News.
Habib was charged under a 2020 city law passed after Floyd’s death that makes it a crime for police officers to use chokeholds or sit, kneel, or stand on someone’s torso during an arrest.
The law was challenged by police unions but was upheld in 2023 by New York state’s highest court.
Police use of chokeholds was already banned in most cases by NYPD regulations at the time the law was enacted, but officers who used them were rarely prosecuted.
A police officer accused of using a prohibited chokehold on Eric Garner, who died during an arrest in 2014, lost his job with the city but faced no criminal charges.
Before his recent arrest, Habib had a history of substantiated misconduct complaints about excessive force and abusing his authority. He was previously cited by the department for using a chokehold in 2017, an incident that was later the subject of news stories about officers continuing to use banned restraints.
Habib was also accused of lying under oath and tampering with evidence in a 2016 gun raid, prompting several defendants to withdraw their guilty pleas.
