Sorry, but it appears most are missing step 0: Over-bearing/over-reaching/intrusive GOV’T.
The man died over TAXES, as the State must make sure to get ‘its piece of the pie’. That is NYC. Those cops had everything else under control/no other higher-level infractions? They couldn’t just give another option: knock it off OR go to jail? If ANYONE has ‘prosecutorial discretion’, it’s the cops...
But no, “Oh, he’s a repeats LOOSE seller...The HORROR”. And, yes, when ever ANYONE has their forearm across a neck (or pair of hands), that’s a choke hold in my book; as much as touching an officer with a FINGER constitutes assault. Some animals are NOT more equal than others!
We can fairly debate the idiocy of NY tax law, but the point is he had been arrested for it before, he decide to resist this time when he was in very poor condititon, and it was the exertion of resisting that killed him, not the hold (hardly a chokehold as it was not across his windpipe). There is no way the cops could know he was in poor health, they just had a large man resisting a legal arrest and did not use excessive force in getting him to the ground.
You should do your research. The guy had been arrested numerous times for selling loose cigarettes because nearby business filed complaints about him with the police, because they did not like the illegal competition.