87 chokehold complaints were filed against the NYPD in 2014

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last updated 8 January 2015

Protests have erupted across the country after a grand jury chose not to indict the police officer who put Eric Garner in a chokehold. But an investigation from Vocativ reveals that chokeholds are surprisingly popular for the NYPD.

Even though the chokehold is prohibited by the NYPD, there were 87 chokehold complaints filed against the NYPD in 2014. Vocativ looked at the complaints filed against the NYPD through the Civilian Complaints Board and discovered that civilians filed hundreds of "use of force" complaints, including the 87 for chokeholds.

Chokeholds were the second most common "use of force" complaints, after "officers pointing guns at people," which took the top spot at 140 complaints. The most common "abuse of authority" complaints, meanwhile, included searching and entering as well as random searches, with 366 complaints each. But Vocativ notes that chokehold complaints are, unfortunately, "difficult to prove" — only one of the 87 complaints was "substantiated" and resulted in disciplinary action by the NYPD. --Meghan DeMaria