NEW YORK (AP) – A New York police officer who was arrested twice for alleged brutality was arrested again on Sunday after police on Long Island said he fired a pistol in the Atlantic Ocean while he was out of service.
David Afanador, 39, was carrying a loaded 9 mm Beretta pistol and three loaded magazines with a capacity for 15 rounds when police investigating a Long Beach shooting report saw him leaving the beach with three other people around 6:50 am on Sunday, said the police.
Shaker was accused last year of putting a black man in a forbidden stranglehold when answering a call on the Queens boardwalk. The NYPD suspended him without pay after that arrest and placed him on a restricted mission. He was not allowed to carry firearms, police said.
A NYPD spokesman, Sergeant. Edward Riley, said Afanador was again suspended without pay.
Afanador was denounced on Monday by video in the Long Beach Municipal Court on charges of criminal possession of a weapon and prohibited use of a weapon. He was also cited for possession of alcohol, which is banned in Ocean Beach Park, for carrying an open can of Truly Hard Seltzer, police said. His next court hearing is scheduled for April 2.
A woman standing with Afanador was also accused of shooting the pistol in the ocean. She is accused of criminal possession of a weapon and prohibited use of a weapon, police said.
A message asking for comments was left with Afanador’s lawyer.
Afanador, who has been in the NYPD for more than 16 years, pleaded not guilty last June to strangulation and attempted aggravation charges after a cell phone video showed him putting his arm around a man’s neck on the Rockaway Beach boardwalk .
The man, Ricky Bellevue, 35, seemed to lose consciousness. Bellevue was arrested in an unrelated incident in the Bronx a few weeks later, after police said he showed a stylus and made anti-gay statements in an attempted robbery.
Chokeholds have been banned by the NYPD for years and were banned across the state last year. Shaker is due to appear in court on Wednesday.
In 2016, Afanador was acquitted of charges of beating a 16-year-old boy during a marijuana seizure., breaking two of his teeth. The beating, seen on video, continued until the boy fell to the floor and was handcuffed.
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