CHARGE HIM!
FEDS: INDICT GARNER CHOKE COP
THE MOTHER of NYPD chokehold victim Eric Garner says she’s waited long enough for justice.
Gwen Carr, responding Friday to reports that the Justice Department remained unsure about bringing charges in her son’s death, questioned the motives behind the nearly four-year delay in the federal investigation.
“If the Trump administration’s Justice Department doesn’t hold NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo and others who killed my son accountable ... they are failing to uphold law and order for politics,” said Carr.
Her reaction followed another recommendation from federal civil rights prosecutors for charges against Pantaleo in the July 2014 death — this time to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
The civil rights division had lobbied for charges in the case during the Obama administration, too.
But then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s go-ahead came too late in her term for prosecutors to empanel a grand jury, leaving the case in the hands of her successor, Jeff Sessions.
Justice officials in the Trump administration were cautious about pushing ahead with a case that many considered tough to win, leaving an exasperated Carr (inset) to wonder what was happening.
She was assured last year that a decision would come by the end of 2017.
“They’re playing political games with the murder of my son,” said Carr. “It’s been nearly four years and there still is no justice — it’s unacceptable.” Mayor de Blasio issued a similar statement urging resolution to the case as the fourth anniversary of Garner’s death looms. “The family and loved ones of Eric Garner have waited long enough,” said the mayor. “Our city has waited long enough. After almost four years of deliberation ... we once again urge the DOJ to show some level of decency to the Garner family.” A Staten Island grand jury declined to indict Pantaleo in the fatal arrest. Garner’s oft-quoted last words before his sidewalk death were, “I can’t breathe.” Lawyers for both the Garner family and Pantaleo said they heard nothing recently about possible charges against the officer.
Nixing the charges “would be a huge disappointment,” said family attorney Jonathan Moore, who expressed concerns about the reported divide between the department’s top echelon and the actual case investigators.
Moore said the Garner family last met with prosecutors in the case this past June at a downtown Brooklyn hotel where they were joined by a pair of FBI agents, too.
Pantaleo’s lawyer Stu London said he was not told of any decision to indict in the case that ignited national protests.