Mountain of lava rains down on Sicily NYPD knee case woes
Body cam broke in Queens cops’ arrest of ATV driver
The probe of an NYPD cop accused of kneeling on a Queens suspect’s neck has hit a snag — the officer’s body-worn camera was damaged in the incident and failed to capture what happened, the Daily News has learned.
The Queens district attorney is investigating whether Officer Thomas Montario used excessive force arresting 34-year-old Sircarlyle Arnold, who is accused of recklessly driving his all-terrain vehicle in circles, nearly hitting a cop on Jan. 2.
Cell phone video shows an officer kneeling on or near Arnold’s neck as bystanders near Sutphin and Linden Blvds. in South Jamaica yell at the cop to remove his knee. “Why you got your knee on his neck?” one man is heard screaming. “Look at his knee! Look at his ... knee!”
The incident enflamed tensions in the wake of the death of George Floyd, killed by a Minneapolis cop who pressed his knee to Floyd’s neck for about eight minutes.
Arnold did not need medical treatment after his arrest. But his lawyer says Montario should be criminally charged under a new law that bans police from using a chokehold or otherwise blocking someone’s airway.
In response to the new law, the NYPD issued a training video, and urged officers to step in if a fellow cop is using such force.
The lawyer, Olayemi Olurin, asked the Queens district attorney’s office for any NYPD body-camera footage in its possession. The footage, she believed, would provide an upclose view buttressing her argument that police broke the law by using illegal force.
One officer’s footage doesn’t show much of the incident, Olurin said. And Montario’s camera, she was told earlier this month in an email from a prosecutor, captured only audio. “It appears as though the camera was dislodged and damaged,” Olurin says she was told. “It appears it might have been run over by a vehicle.”
Olurin said she is skeptical because she had not previously been told of the damage. The audio that was captured, she said, is not conclusive.
The DA’s office would not answer questions about the camera, citing its policy not to comment on pending cases.
Arnold, who has been charged with misdemeanor reckless endangerment and marijuana possession, plus four traffic offenses, told the Daily News last month that as he was taken to the ground he was determined not to die like Floyd.
“I didn’t realize what was happening,” he recalled. “I heard a lot of people screaming in the background. I felt something on my neck, but my adrenaline was rushing so much. Then when I saw the (cell phone) video I was like, ‘Oh my God!’ ”
“I didn’t resist at all,” he added. “I’m saying to myself, ‘Why would you guys treat me like that? I didn’t kill no one. I didn’t hurt no one.’ ”
The NYPD has said it is also probing the incident.
Arnold, who was born in Queens and lives on Long Island, said he and his friends had gathered with their ATVs, which are illegal to operate in the city, to commemorate a fellow rider, a friend recently slain.
He was released without bail after his arrest. He has two children and was laid off from his job building office cubicles because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
His lawyer said she had been hoping the DA would drop the charges against Arnold.
“But the fact that they haven’t already done so,” she said, “shows me they are just interested in defending this officer.”