Garner Death Disciplinary Proceedings to Begin Immediately: NYPD
Four years after the death of Eric Garner at the hands of members of the New York Police Department, internal disciplinary proceedings against two officers involved in the incident are set to begin immediately, an NYPD spokesman confirmed. The move is an acceleration of the NYPD’s declaration earlier this week that it intended to take action against the officers by month’s end if the U.S. Department of Justice did not. Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who applied a hold around Garner’s neck in a widely seen video recording of the moments before Garner’s death on Staten Island, will face disciplinary proceedings through the Civilian Complaint Review Board. Last September, the board recommended Pantaleo face department discipline after the board substantiated two complaints made against the officer in the Garner case. In a statement, CCRB chair Rev. Frederick Davie said, “The Administrative Prosecution Unit has been ready to prosecute officer Pantaleo, and we have commenced the process of filing charges.” A spokeswoman for the police oversight board declined to provide information about the specific charges against Pantaleo, citing state law 50-a, which shields law enforcement officials' disciplinary information from public release. Sgt. Kizzy Adonis was served with departmental disciplinary charges related to the incident back in January 2016. They were the first charges filed against any of the officers involved in Garner’s death. Her case is now set to proceed through the department’s internal process led by the NYPD Department Advocate. Both officers have been on modified duty ahead of the proceedings. The department has held off on the disciplinary proceedings, citing an active criminal investigation into Garner’s death by the DOJ. The DOJ has maintained that, at least since the spring, the NYPD has gotten the all-clear to proceed. NYPD officials challenge that claim. According to the NYPD spokesman, the DOJ gave, for the first time, an official confirmation to Deputy Commissioner of Legal Matters Larry Byrne that the department had no objection to disciplinary proceedings moving forward. A DOJ spokesman declined to comment on the NYPD’s claim, pointing instead to the department’s previous statements. Garner's mother, Gwen Carr, called the police department's insistence on needing to wait ahead of federal authorities a lie in a written statement. She went on to question the department's decision to bring charges against just two officers, when at least five were visible in the video of Garner's final moments. "It’s past time for [Mayor Bill] de Blasio and the NYPD to stop playing games with my son's death and release the names of all the officers responsible for his murder, [who] tried to cover it up, and engaged in other related misconduct, and bring disciplinary charges to fire all of them," Carr said. The federal investigation has been a flashpoint between the office of the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, which has jurisdiction over Staten Island, and the DOJ's Civil Rights Division in Washington, D.C. Eastern District prosecutors long ago elected against bringing charges in the case. That decision was not supported by their colleagues in Washington, leading to a rare public split inside the department. Most recently, reports have indicated the current DOJ leadership under U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is reluctant to move forward. Requests for comments from spokesmen for the Sergeants Benevolent Association and the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, the respective unions for Adonis and Pantaleo, went unanswered.
