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The 'Blue Wall' won’t protect NYPD officer on trial for chokehold, prosecutor says
By
Samantha Max
Published Aug 5, 2026
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Samantha Max / Gothamist
By
Samantha Max
Published Aug 5, 2026
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Using chokeholds has been against NYPD policy since the 1990s, long before Eric Garner made the words “I can’t breathe” a rallying cry, and it’s been against New York City law since 2020, when George Floyd uttered those same words as a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck and killed him.
NYPD Officer Omar Habib is accused of using the prohibited technique not once — but twice. After he used the tactic in 2017, the police department placed him on probation for a year, and the city agreed to pay more than $740,000 to settle a civil lawsuit. He’s now on criminal trial, charged with strangling a man in the Bronx in 2023 who prosecutors said lost consciousness but ultimately survived. If convicted, Habib faces up to seven years in prison.
Habib is the first NYPD officer to be prosecuted under the 2020 law banning chokeholds, which the City Council passed just days after Floyd’s murder. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of strangulation, criminal obstruction of breathing, assault and using an unlawful method of restraint.
Sometimes when members of the NYPD are accused of crimes, fellow officers pack the courtroom to show their support. That has not been the case at Habib’s trial, other than a few union officials. Other officers who were with him that day in 2023 have testified against him, saying his actions looked so out of the ordinary that they had planned to alert their supervisor if he hadn’t reported himself first.
“The blue wall of silence is not protecting Mr. Habib,” Assistant District Attorney Michael Naughton said during his opening statement last week.
Naughton accused Habib of using “excessive and outright prohibitive force.” Habib’s defense attorney, Jacob Weinstein, told jurors in his opening statement the officer was “doing his job” and reacting to a situation he wasn’t trained for. He said Habib wasn’t taught how to make an arrest inside a small space like the back of an ambulance, or what to do when the person he was arresting was bigger than him and fell on top of him.
On July 28, 2023, Habib and several other officers responded to a party at Eastwood Manor, a catering hall on Eastchester Road in the Bronx. Party guest Lord Nyamaah had too much to drink, got into a fight and punched some mirrors in the bathroom, according to prosecutors.
While Nyamaah was being treated in the back of an ambulance for cuts on his hands, Habib and several other officers tried to arrest him for criminal mischief, officers at the scene that night testified. Body-worn camera footage played in court shows Habib wrapping his arm around Nyamaah’s neck as other officers cuff his hands. Then, Nyamaah appears to fall to the floor and can be heard breathing loudly, as if snoring, before opening his eyes and breathing rapidly.
Dr. Priyanka Datta, an emergency medicine doctor at Kings County Hospital who specializes in treating strangulation patients, told jurors Habib appeared to have applied pressure to Nyamaah’s neck for about 20 to 22 seconds. She said it takes seven seconds of continuous pressure to lose consciousness. As prosecutors played body camera footage in court, the doctor narrated what appeared to be happening in Nyamaah’s body and said he was showing signs of being strangled and losing consciousness.
‘I did not like what I had seen’
Former NYPD Officer Coleman Murphy testified that he was confused when he saw Habib’s actions in the back of the ambulance.
“It just looked odd,” he told jurors. He recalled thinking to himself, “How did it get to that? What had happened?”
Murphy said when he and the other officers at the scene returned to the precinct later that night, they spoke with a union representative and planned to report what they had witnessed. He said he had never reported someone for using a chokehold before, but he knew it was his duty to do so.
“I did not like what I had seen,” he said. “The arm around the head just seemed off.”
Vincent Ferreira, another former NYPD officer who responded to the scene that night, said he was focused on Nyamaah’s hands as he helped to cuff the man in the back of the ambulance. Once the cuffs were on and he looked up, he said, he realized Habib had Nyamaah in a chokehold. Ferreira testified that he didn’t restrain Nyamaah’s neck because it’s “against department policy.” When a prosecutor asked if there was ever any doubt in his mind about whether chokeholds were permitted during his time at the NYPD, he said “no.”
Jurors saw excerpts from NYPD training materials and the department’s policy guide that explicitly prohibit the use of chokeholds. They also saw portions of a training video teaching officers about the 2020 law that made chokeholds illegal, which Habib watched before the 2023 incident with Nyamaah, according to records shown in court.
Lt. Morgan Courgnaud, who oversees curriculum at the NYPD’s training academy, testified that Habib should have learned multiple times about the department’s ban on chokeholds. He said the officer would have gone through training when he was hired and that he would have also received refreshers more recently.
“It was drilled into your head: Chokeholds are not allowed. They’re prohibited. They’re strictly prohibited. We can’t use them,” former NYPD Officer Jillian Snider said in an interview.
Snider, now an adjunct lecturer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said using a chokehold is the “biggest no-no” officers learn at the training academy, other than shooting at a moving vehicle. In her approximately 15 years at the department, she said, she never saw a fellow officer use that form of restraint.
The former officer said Habib’s prosecution sends a message to other members of law enforcement that they will be held accountable if they break the law. Other officers’ testimony at trial reflects a growing unwillingness among members of law enforcement to risk their life, their job or their reputation because of a colleague’s actions, Snider said.
“I think it’s gotten to the point where we want to defend ourselves and the occupation of law enforcement and keep it a professional job that has ethics and standards and integrity,” she said. “Having cops on the force that are blatantly not following the rules, that hurts our profession. It also hurts our relationship with the community.”
Tagged
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nypd
public safety
Samantha Max
Samantha reports on whether New Yorkers feel safe and whether the institutions that are supposed to protect them are working. Before coming to WNYC/Gothamist, she spent three years covering the criminal justice system in Tennessee for Nashville Public Radio. Her reporting on Nashville's police department received multiple awards, including the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize. Samantha was also part of the inaugural class of Report for America, a service journalism program that sends up-and-coming reporters to local newsrooms across the country. She is a Northwestern University grad, a Baltimore native and fluent in Spanish. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal: samanthamaxwnyc.93.
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