Bo boosts choke cop

MAYORAL HOPEFUL Bo Dietl would not fire the cop who killed Eric Garner, he said Monday.

“There was no intention to kill that man,” Dietl, a former NYPD cop, said when asked if he’d boot Officer Daniel Pantaleo if elected. “You think that that officer got dressed that morning and said, ‘Oh, today I’m gonna kill somebody and choke him to death?’ That’s not what happened,” he said of the notorious 2014 incident.

Dietl made the declaration at a wide-ranging City Hall press conference where he also expressed a wish to cut Mayor de Blasio open to see if he has a heart, and said he’s hurt by people comparing him to President Trump.

Dietl has previously said he’d employed the same maneuver used on Garner during an attempted arrest for selling cigarettes on Staten Island. On Monday, he insisted the move Pantaleo used on Garner was “not a chokehold. It’s a headlock, son, and I’ve used it dozens of times.

“My prisoners never died,” he added. Pantaleo is being investigated by the feds, but has not been charged criminally.

“You’ve got to respect me as journalists — say, ‘Wow, Bo’s got some b---s to talk the way he just did about the thing in Staten Island,” Dietl said. “I’ll say that in front of any group. If Reverend, what’s his name, Al Sharpton wants me to go to Action Network, I’ll sit there. They’ll boo me. And I’ll tell them exactly what I went through.”

It’s the same in-your-face style that has earned Dietl frequent comparisons to Trump — but the mayoral contender said he’s stung by the analogy to the unpopular President.

“I am not Donald Trump. And anyone that compares me, I really feel hurt in my heart,” he said. “I’m not another Donald Trump. I’m Bo Dietl. I’ve spilled my blood. I’m a grandfather here in New York. I’m not a billionaire.”

Still, he said he’d work with Trump instead of taking him on publicly, as de Blasio has done.

As for the incumbent mayor’s heart, Dietl said he doubts it’s there because he has never seen de Blasio cry publicly.

“In reality, I care. I cry,” he said, invoking kids who have died after missteps by the city’s child welfare authorities. “This guy over here just stands up there. He’s like a robot. I’d like to cut him open and see if he has a heart. I don’t think the man has a heart. I don’t ever see the man ever cry.”