{"id":320672,"date":"2026-08-13T20:34:55","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T20:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/320672\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T20:34:55","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T20:34:55","slug":"nypd-cop-omar-habib-convicted-of-using-illegal-chokehold-on-bronx-suspect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/320672\/","title":{"rendered":"NYPD cop Omar Habib convicted of using illegal chokehold on Bronx suspect"},"content":{"rendered":"

An NYPD cop was convicted by a Bronx jury Thursday of using an illegal chokehold<\/a> on a suspect, the first time an officer has been tried since a local law prohibiting the tactic was enacted in the wake of murder of George Floyd.<\/p>\n

The crime, unlawful method of restraint, is a misdemeanor but Officer Omar Habib<\/a> was also convicted of strangulation, a felony, resulting in his automatic dismissal from the NYPD.<\/p>\n

The 19-year NYPD veteran was also convicted of misdemeanor assault and now faces up to seven years in state prison when he is sentenced.<\/p>\n

After the jury announced its verdict, Bronx Criminal Supreme Court Judge Isales ordered him held on Rikers Island without bail as he awaits sentencing.<\/p>\n

Patrick Hendry, president of the Police Benevolent Association, the union that represents Habib, blasted the verdict.<\/p>\n

Hendry called the convictions \u201cfurther proof of a grim reality: every second police officers spend on this job puts them at risk of criminal prosecution, and pervasive anti-police propaganda has made it incredibly difficult to receive a fair trial.\u201d<\/p>\n

The victim in the case had earlier testified he had no plans to pursue a criminal case<\/a> against Habib, who apologized for using a chokehold on him \u2014 until he saw the officer\u2019s body-worn camera video and watched as he lost consciousness.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe choked me,\u201d Lord Nyamah said of Officer Omar Habib. \u201cHe had me cuffed behind my back. He grabbed my neck.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before seeing the video, Nyamah was fine with moving on with his life, noting that when Habib apologized to him a few minutes after the incident, he told the cop, \u201cDon\u2019t worry. I\u2019m not going to press any charges.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NYPDNYPD Officer Omar Habib walks into a courtroom in Bronx Supreme Court on July 29. (Barry Williams \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want you to lose your job,\u201d he remembered telling Habib. \u201cBut (the cop) said, \u2018I\u2019m going to be fired anyway.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

During cross-examination, Habib\u2019s defense attorney, Jacob Weinstein, tried to prove several other factors could have led to Nyamah falling unconscious, including how much blood he lost by punching a mirror and that he had not eaten much food before drinking.<\/p>\n

He even got Nyamah to admit that, as a semi-pro boxer in Guyana in his late teens and early 20s, he took several blows to the body and head, some of which knocked him out.<\/p>\n

During his his opening argument, Weinstein said the body-worn camera video, which prosecutors had to slow down and freeze at points to show the chokehold, doesn\u2019t show the whole story.<\/p>\n

\"SurveillanceSurveillance video shows violent confrontation between police and Dennis Prewitt, during which Prewitt appears to be choked by Officer Omar Habib.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re talking about a moment in time, splitting a hair,\u201d he said about the snippet of video. \u201cBut as you all know, life is not a moment in time. It\u2019s clear (Habib) was only doing his job.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Assistant District Attorney Michael Naughton in his opening argument told the court Habib was breaking the law, not enforcing it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will know it when you see it,\u201d he said of the video.<\/p>\n

Habib, who was suspended for 30 days after his arrest, had since then been on modified assignment, working without a gun and shield monitoring NYCHA surveillance cameras.<\/p>\n

He is no stranger to controversy.<\/p>\n

NYPD Officer Omar Habib<\/p>\n

\"OfficerOfficer Omar Habib. (Obtained by Daily News)<\/p>\n

A chokehold allegation made against him by a man he arrested in 2017<\/a> resulted in a lawsuit the city settled two years ago for $744,000. As a result, Habib lost 30 days\u2019 pay and was placed on dismissal probation for a year.<\/p>\n

According to discipline records, he lost 40 days\u2019 pay after he was accused of using excessive force for punching a handcuffed prisoner in the face in 2009.<\/p>\n

And in 2020, the Daily News reported that one Bronx gun suspect was acquitted and two others were allowed to withdraw<\/a> felony guilty pleas after Habib admitted evidence in the case had been tampered with.<\/p>\n

Habib is the first NYPD officer tried under a city law passed in the wake of Floyd\u2019s 2020 murder by a cop in Minneapolis. The law bars police from using chokeholds or any form of physical restraint that can restrict a suspect\u2019s ability to breathe.<\/p>\n

Police unions challenged the law but the state\u2019s highest court upheld it in late 2023.<\/p>\n

The NYPD did not comment on the guilty verdict but noted the Internal Affairs Bureau started an investigation after the incident, then referred the case to the Bronx District Attorney,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An NYPD cop was convicted by a Bronx jury Thursday of using an illegal chokehold on a suspect,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,262,263,266,85,267,9,24,264,10,12,63,261,265,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-320672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-city","tag-county","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-county","tag-new-york-news","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-crime","tag-sub-county-region","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}