<p>NEW YORK — A New York City police officer who’s been arrested twice for alleged brutality was arrested again Sunday after police on Long Island say he fired a pistol into the Atlantic Ocean while off duty.</p>
<p>David Afanador, 39, was carrying a loaded pistol and three loaded high-capacity magazines when officers investigating a report of shots fired in Long Beach saw him walking off the beach with three other people around 6:50 a.m. Sunday, police said. </p>
<p>Afanador was charged last year with <a href="https://apnews.com/article/f245db8fab69f9efc26189515f507f7c">putting a Black man in a banned chokehold</a> while responding to a call at a Queens boardwalk. The NYPD suspended him without pay after that arrest and then placed him on restricted assignment. He was not authorized to carry firearms, police said.</p>
<p>An NYPD spokesperson, Sgt. Edward Riley, said Afanador has again been suspended without pay.</p>
<p>Afanador is expected to be arraigned Monday in Long Beach City Court on charges of criminal possession of a weapon, prohibited use of a weapon and possession of alcohol, which is banned at Ocean Beach Park.</p>
<p>A woman stopped with Afanador was also accused of firing the pistol into the ocean and faces charges of weapon possession and prohibited use of a weapon, police said.</p>
<p>Online court records didn’t list a lawyer for Afanador. A message seeking comment was left with the lawyer representing him in the chokehold case.</p>
<p>Afanador, who’s been with the NYPD for more than 16 years, pleaded not guilty last June to strangulation and attempted aggravated strangulation charges after cellphone video showed him putting his arm around a man’s neck on the Rockaway Beach boardwalk.</p>
<p>The man, 35-year-old Ricky Bellevue, appeared to lose consciousness. Bellevue was arrested in an unrelated incident in the Bronx a few weeks later after police say he flashed a box cutter and made anti-gay statements in an attempted robbery.</p>
<p>Chokeholds have been prohibited by the NYPD for years and were banned statewide last year. Afanador is scheduled for a court appearance in that case on Wednesday.</p>
<p>In 2016, Afanador was acquitted on charges he <a href="https://apnews.com/article/4c20d80478b44973a1b18290d2dfca09">pistol-whipped a 16-year-old boy during a marijuana bust</a>, breaking two of his teeth. The beating, seen on video, continued until the boy dropped to the ground and was handcuffed.</p>
<p>__</p>
<p>Follow Michael Sisak on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/mikesisak">twitter.com/mikesisak</a></p>
