If the cop said that it wasn’t a choke hold, that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t, as no one - except God - should be believed without question.
I listened to former cops, former prosecutors on the major cable news networks. I noticed it was said that if breathing is constricted, then it is a chokehold.
His breathing was not constricted by the hold, and they only found minor capillary breakage (not consistent with a chokehold, but simply with force applied briefly, in this case to pull him off of the other officer) on his neck and no damage whatsoever to his throat or any major blood vessels.
That’s why the left has had to drop the “chokehold” meme.