An innocent guy & cop face off in ‘chokehold’ case

An NYPD administrative judge is reviewing starkly different testimony involving a tip about a gun, a stop-and-frisk and an allegation that a Brooklyn cop used a banned chokehold on an innocent teen.

Officer David Mercado testified Thursday in the trial room at 1 Police Plaza that with two other officers standing nearby he held the teen’s wrist with one hand while he frisked him with his other hand.

He said he let the 17-year-old go when he did not find a gun.

The cops, on patrol in Bedford-Stuyvesant, were following up on a tip from a man who flagged them down to say there was a man with a gun down the street. At the time, Mercado worked in plainclothes for the Brooklyn North anti-crime unit, and he and the other two officers were in an unmarked car.

The teen, Lakee McKinney, “was extremely irate, yelling,” Mercado testified.

Mercado, a seven-year veteran of the NYPD, said he never used a chokehold on McKinney and that the only time he got rough with him was when the teen grabbed another officer by the arm as they were getting back into their car.

“I pushed the individual away, in his arm, chest area,” Mercado testified. “He pushed back and continued to yell and scream.”

McKinney, now 20 and working as a security guard, testified two days earlier that on the night in question, Aug. 27, 2016, he was waiting at Pulaski St. and Throop Ave. for his girlfriend. He said when he was confronted by Mercado and the two other plainclothes officers he thought he was about to be robbed because they did not identify themselves as cops.

McKinney said two officers grabbed his arms while Mercado clocked him in the jaw and chest with one punch, then shoved his right forearm onto McKinney’s neck, restricting his breathing for up to 30 seconds as he was forced back against a street pole. “Basically, he had me pinned against the pole,” McKinney testified. “I was having trouble breathing. He was pressing his forearm against my whole neck.”

McKinney called 911 to report the incident. By then, his girlfriend had arrived and alerted McKinney’s mother, Rebecca McCalla, 39.

Pictures taken by 79th Precinct cops, entered into evidence, show McKinney with a bruised neck and lip.

Before McKinney’s complaint was formally lodged, Mercado and the other two cops returned to the scene. Mercado testified he explained to McKinney’s mother why her son had been stopped.

McKinney said it was more an attempt to apologize than to explain what happened.

Jeannie Elie, a lawyer for the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which is prosecuting the case, recommended the judge, Assistant Deputy Trials Commissioner Jeff Adler, find Mercado guilty and dock him no less than 15 vacation days.

Under questioning by Elie, Mercado admitted he never asked the tipster for a description of the man with the gun.

“This is information that would be pertinent to him locating the person with the gun,” Elie said. “Instead, he rushed to judgment and he attacked the complainant.”

Mercado’s lawyer John Tynan said the stop was textbook police work. “This wasn’t some random stop of some young man,” he said in his closing statement. “[Officer Mercado] was just doing his job.”

Tynan also expressed doubt about the testimony of two witnesses who backed McKinney’s story, noting Mercado didn’t recall seeing them at the scene.

A decision in the case is weeks away. Adler will make his recommendation to Police Commissioner James O’Neill, who has the final say over any action against an officer.

For McKinney, the verdict is already in. He was a 79th Precinct police cadet when he was younger. He wanted to be a cop, he said, but not anymore.

“He treated me like he had his power — and like I was nothing,” McKinney told the Daily News. “Like I was a baby, like I was his kid and he didn’t have to show me any respect.”