After Video Shows Apparent Chokehold, N.Y.P.D. Suspends Officer

The cellphone video, taken in the vicinity of Beach 116th Street, shows three officers on top of Mr. Bellevue, including one who appears to press his forearm into the man’s neck for 10 seconds while bystanders yell that he is being choked. Ms. Zeno identified that officer as David Afanador. The shield number of the officer in the video matches Officer Afanador’s name in a public database of federal lawsuits against the police that is maintained by the Legal Aid Society.

Mr. Bellevue lost consciousness during the arrest, Ms. Zeno said, and he appears limp in the cellphone video. He was taken into custody on suspicion of disorderly conduct, obstructing governmental administration and resisting arrest, she said. Ms. Zeno said he had a bloody scalp and swollen wrists when she saw him at the police station.

“He was on such a hard chokehold that he couldn’t speak to say he couldn’t breathe,” she said.

Officer Afanador can be heard on the body camera footage telling another person that Mr. Bellevue, who the authorities knew had been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and the other two men appear to be intoxicated. Officer Afanador then says in the footage that Mr. Bellevue is acting as if he is going to hit another officer with something.

“The minute I saw him flex on him, that’s when he goes down because we don’t get hurt and we’re not going to leave somebody violent out here who might do that to one of you or another innocent person,” Officer Afanador can be heard saying. “That’s why he’s in cuffs, and that’s why he’s going to the hospital because we know he’s ill.”

Officer Afanador was charged with assault in 2014 after prosecutors said that he and another officer attacked a 16-year-old boy whom they saw with a bag of marijuana. Prosecutors said Officer Afanador swung his gun at the teenager’s mouth and broke his teeth. He was found not guilty in a bench trial in 2016.

“Good riddance,” Amy Rameau, the lawyer for the teenager, said on Sunday, reacting to Officer Afanador’s suspension. “He’s a criminal. There’s no other way to put it. He doesn’t belong on anybody’s police force.”

By Sunday afternoon, video clips of Mr. Bellevue’s the arrest began circulating online, prompting widespread outrage and calls for an investigation and the release of the body camera footage.