The law was implemented immediately. The state Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) reports that about 1,000 strangulation arrests are made every month.
Johanna Sullivan, counsel to the state Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence, told the New York Law Journal that strangulation may leave no marks but can bring someone to the edge of death, again and again. She said studies show that victims who have been strangled in the past are nearly 10 times more likely to die in a domestic dispute.
“Someone can strangle someone almost to the point of dying, and will use that over and over again as a way of gaining power and control,” said Sullivan. “They threaten the victim by almost killing them.”
A strangulation report issued by the DCJS in September, 2012 ranks Westchester the 10th highest county among the 20 counties reporting 150 or more strangulation arrests or arraignments between Nov. 11, 2010 (when the law took effect) and June 2012.
Westchester reported 418 cases while Brooklyn ranks first with 3,484 cases. Together these 20 counties accounted for 87 percent of all strangulation arrest events in the state.
Of all people arrested with a strangulation charge, 94.1 percent were men.
As written in the DCJS report, the crime of strangulation breaks down into three offense levels:
• Criminal Obstruction of Breathing or Blood Circulation (A Misdemeanor) – criminal obstruction of breathing or blood circulation by applying pressure to the throat or neck or blocking a person’s nose or mouth.

• Strangulation 2nd (D Felony) – criminal obstruction of breathing or blood circulation, as described above, and causing stupor, loss of consciousness, or any other physical injury or impairment.

• Strangulation 1st (C Felony) – criminal obstruction of breathing or blood circulation, as described above, and causing serious physical injury.

The misdemeanor offense was put into use recently by Tarrytown Police, who arrested a man on charges of criminal obstruction of breathing after an incident that occurred in the TGI Fridays on White Plains Road.
Before the new strangulation charge, Sleepy Hollow police Chief Gregory Camp said more typically these cases might go unreported.
“Before one party would choke another one and didn’t cause any visible damage but the person couldn’t breathe. Maybe the person wouldn’t press charges. But now,” he said, “this falls into mandatory arrest.”
Gorski’s colleague Jessica Brenes told the New York Law Journal that “Gorski rarely spoke of personal matters and she never heard of or saw any indication of domestic violence.”
Camp said he didn’t find any record of domestic incidents at 127 New Broadway prior to the one that proved deadly. “That doesn’t mean that something didn’t happen somewhere,” Camp said.

SAN JOSE — When they began investigating Andrea Theis’ death last year, San Jose detectives believed the evidence contradicted what her boyfriend was saying: Theis committed suicide.
It wasn’t until a nationally recognized strangulation expert determined last month that Theis’ death was the result of a homicide that police arrested the boyfriend, Anthony Almaguer, on suspicion of murder, according to a police statement of facts obtained by this newspaper Friday.
Police arrested Almaguer on Tuesday, more than one year after the death of his longtime girlfriend. Homicide investigators referred questions to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office.
On Sept. 14, 2011, police responded to the couple’s apartment following a 911 call made by Almaguer reporting his girlfriend’s suicide. Almaguer told police he had returned to the apartment after being gone for just 30 minutes and found Theis hanging from a closet rod. Police say the couple had been dating for seven years and have a young child.
Police say Theis and Almaguer had a “tumultuous relationship” that had been physical at times, though never reported to authorities.
In the statement of facts, detectives detailed inconsistencies they observed between Almaguer’s version with what they found inside the couple’s apartment on North Capitol Avenue. They said: Theis’ sweatpants were pulled downward toward her hips, giving the appearance she was dragged by her arms and shoulders; Theis weighed 200 pounds, but the closet rod was not bent; and rigor mortis, which typically begins about three hours after death, had begun to set even though Almaguer said he was only away for 20 to 30 minutes.
Detectives who met with Almaguer after his girlfriend’s death noticed what appeared to be a fresh bite mark on his inside left forearm and took a swab of the bite mark for DNA analysis. The long-sleeve shirt Almaguer wore throughout the day was also collected, and Theis’ DNA was present on the swab and the left sleeve/forearm area of the shirt, according to the statement of facts.
A Santa Clara County medical examiner who performed the autopsy ruled the cause of death as being from “ligature asphyxiation of undetermined” cause, which can be roughly translated as being strangled with an unknown object.
“Because of the inconsistent and changing facts of the details given by her boyfriend during the interrogation, other means of ligature asphyxiation (i.e. garroting) cannot be ruled out in this instance,” the medical examiner wrote. “Since the investigative reports and the autopsy cannot support one cause of death and refute the other with clear-cut certainty … the manner of death will be ruled as undetermined.”
San Jose homicide detective Glenn Albin sought forensic pathologist Dr. Dean Hawley, a nationally recognized strangulation expert from Indiana University, to review the coroner’s report and photographs.
In late September, Hawley sent his “opinion, within reasonable medical certainty” that Theis was the victim of homicide, according to a police statement of facts.
Albin wrote in the statement of facts that he believes Almaguer murdered Theis “with a ligature, then attempted to cover-up the murder by staging it to look like a suicide.”

That changed thanks to a group from the Samaritan House. Just last year alone, they helped nearly 40 women recover from a strangulation assault, making it one of the most common types of domestic abuse.
It is something Lindsay never expected would happen to her.
She says, “He took my phone and I yanked it back. And then he started to strangle me. He strangled me five times.”
Lindsay says she was trying to break up with Jones after eight months of dating. But it didn’t end well.
Court documents show Jones told investigators that was the only way to get Lindsay off of him, which she says was done out of self-defense.
She adds, “Emotions just get the best of everybody and it just got out of hand.”
As for Lindsay, she says she’s thankful the crime is now a felony after surviving what she calls a near-death experience.
She says, “People say it’s not that bad. They say you are dramatic. But you don’t know until you’re in that predicament, gasping for air because of someone putting their hands on you. It’s not worth it.”