Garner cop trial
TAKING STAND ‘A GAMETIME DECISION’
Will he or won’t he?
Officer Daniel Pantaleo has never publicly explained his actions in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, and even with his departmental trial due to start Monday it’s still not clear if he will take the stand.
“That’s a gametime decision,” said his lawyer Stu London. “We’ll see how the trial goes.”
Pantaleo, who could be fired by Police Commissioner James O’Neill after the trial, is still waiting to find out if the Justice Department will bring a civil rights case against him. The feds have until July 17, five years from the date of Garner’s death, to announce the findings of their investigation. Some people who have closely followed the case think there will be no charges. A Staten Island grand jury more than four years ago voted not to indict Pantaleo.
For Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, it’s been an interminable wait.
She has called Pantaleo a murderer, accused Mayor de Blasio of idly standing by instead of having O’Neill bring Pantaleo to trial much sooner, and listened in anger to those who blame Garner for his own death, citing his poor health and refusal to let police arrest him that fateful day.
“Some people can see the injustice,” Carr said. “Others just turn their heads.”
Smartphone video obtained by the Daily News captured the Garner takedown on Bay St. and the agonizing moments that followed, during which Garner pleaded 11 times, “I can’t breathe!’
Pantaleo has been accused of using a banned chokehold on Garner during a confrontation on July 17, 2014. However, he was not technically charged with violating the Patrol Guide ban on chokeholds. NYPD Trials Commissioner Rosemarie Maldonado ruled last week that the Civilian Complaint Review Board had not filed that charge before the statute of limitations ran out.
Police have said Garner, 43, was selling loose, untaxed cigarettes on the sidewalk. When he refused to surrender, cops tried to take him into custody, with Pantaleo grabbing the 6-foot-2, 395-pound Garner from behind.
The medical examiner ruled Garner died from the chokehold and chest compression, adding that Garner’s weight, asthma and cardiovascular disease were contributing factors.
The Garner incident fed into a national debate and movement over the use of excessive force by police when dealing with members of minority communities. It also prompted an overhaul of NYPD training to emphasize deescalating tensions before using force.
London has said Pantaleo told the grand jury he used a department approved takedown move, not a chokehold, and that he was trying to arrest Garner, not choke him.
Even if Pantaleo does not testify, London said he will play the video in slow motion to prove the officer was doing what he was trained to do and is not guilty of the strangulation or attempted assault charges against him.
London still blasts the medical examiner’s conclusion on the cause of Garner’s death. “The case will be based upon attacking the medical examiner and the worst possible autopsy ever done,” London said.
“The ME’s office took what was a brush fire and poured kerosene on it with an inaccurate medical report,” he said. “That, together with all the other inconsistencies, turned this case into a nightmare.”
It is not lost on Carr that the trial starts just after Mother’s Day. Her son, she said, doted on her each year, taking her to dinner or giving her chocolate-covered roses from Edible Arrangements. A gold necklace adorned with #1 Mom is her favorite gift from him, she said.
This year, she planned on spending the day with other mothers who have lost sons in police encounters. “We’re just going to remember the good things about our sons,” she said. “We’re not going to talk about the tragedy.”
Carr said she’ll show up Monday at 1 Police Plaza and ready herself for a recounting of her son’s final minutes.