It’s hard to imagine what prompted a New York City Police Officer to put a young skateboarder in a chokehold in Queens, but it happened.
Skateboarding is prohibited in Columbus Circle where the incident happened.
An officer stopped Yibin Mu to cite him. We don’t know what happened prior to the video, but it shows the officer grabbing Mu in a chokehold and then tackling him to the ground. At one point the officer appeared to pepper spray Mu, although he did not appear to resist the officer in anyway.
You can hear Mu scream “What did I do wrong.”
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“Without warning, the police officer used one hand to grab my forearm and the other hand to grab the back of my neck,” said Mu in his You Tube post. “He then put me in a chokehold and this is what happened next. I was non-aggressive the entire time. My name is Yibin Mu and I’m tired of abusive cops.
“The officer is named Gill, badge number 19646 who works at the Midtown North Precinct. 18th Precinct. Whether his badge number is real or not I do not know.”
According to the police report cited by Raw Story , the police officer said Mu refused to sit down while he wrote the citation.
“The officer informed him that he was placing him under arrest, and attempted to take him into custody, and the defendant fought with the officer,” said the spokesman, Detective Brian Sessa.
Wow, placing him under arrest for skateboarding. That’s pretty extreme.
Officers need to use their own judgement if they feel at any time threatened. Nothing in the police report explains how Mu resisted.
Watch the video below.
