'I Was Choked by the NYPD': New York's Chokehold Problem Isn't Going Away

As far as Angel Martinez was concerned, the police officer at the front desk that night wasn't much more than an inconvenience. Sure, he'd refused to take Martinez's complaint. He was even a little rude about it. But for Martinez, after a night in Queens central booking, with his face battered and welts blooming all over his body, that officer was an afterthought.

Martinez was more concerned about the other two cops. The ones he says kicked his ass for no good reason. The ones who'd approached him and started patting him down without a word of explanation. The ones who slammed his face into a parked car, then onto the sidewalk, when he objected. The ones who ruined the new plaid button-down he'd bought for a job interview earlier that day — torn it to shreds.

Those officers, Martinez has alleged in a complaint with the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), punched him in the ribs, handcuffed him — and punched him one more time, for good measure. They were the ones he was concerned with. Especially Officer Frank Calafiore — who Martinez says kept an arm wrapped around his throat almost from the moment the encounter began.

He still isn't exactly sure of the legal definition, but it sure felt like a chokehold.

But the cop behind the counter? He was the last thing on Martinez's mind. So Martinez laughs and shakes his head when he learns that, today, more than two years after he filed the complaint, the only officer who has suffered any consequences is the one who was on desk duty in the 103rd Precinct that night. Sitting on his mother's deep-blue couch, in a tidy apartment on a tree-lined street in East New York, he can't believe what he's hearing.

"Really?" Martinez throws his hands up. "Come on, he got in trouble?" He breaks into a big you-can't-be-serious grin. "I didn't even care! I didn't even care about that guy. I just wanted to bring it to their attention, that there was an officer doing this."

Martinez, 24, is lanky, with hair that hangs almost to his shoulders. Every now and then a curl comes loose, and he tucks it absently behind his ear.

He's pissed off, he says. The officer behind the counter that January 2012 morning, Carlo Santoro, was just a distraction. Martinez isn't trying to take down the entire department. He's not on a mission against cops in general. Strictly speaking, he's not even on a mission against the officers who allegedly beat him up. He has filed a federal lawsuit against the department, but money's not what he's interested in, either.

"Honestly, I felt like I was being kidnapped," Martinez says. "From all that had happened, I really felt like they were going to put me in that car, take me to an alley, and fuck me up even more. I just want them to know that they can't just get away with this. Because it happens everywhere. It happens on a daily basis."

So what is he after?

"I really want to inconvenience these people," Martinez says. "It's like, you did this to me, and you thought I was just going to be some statistic, another routine stop that you're going to forget."

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