Pantaleo ‘untruthful’
Judge’s ruling details why she urged that he be fired
The police officer accused of placing Eric Garner in a deadly chokehold five years ago was “untruthful” and “disingenuous” in his recounting of the incident, says the city judge who recommended he be fired.
Officer Daniel Pantaleo didn’t testify at his departmental trial this year in the death of Eric Garner — but when interviewed by NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau cops, he claimed he did not use a prohibited chokehold on Garner as he tried to arrest him on a Staten Island sidewalk in 2014.
“I found [Pantaleo’s] uncorroborated hearsay statements explaining his actions to be untruthful,” NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Trials Rosemarie Maldonado said.
Maldonado’s ruling was published in The New York Times on Sunday night.
“First, I found [Pantaleo] to be disingenuous when he viewed the video and denied using a chokehold, even though his actions were completely consistent with his own erroneous and restrictive definition of the Patrol Guide prohibition.
She continued, “Second, the preponderance of the credible evidence contradicted his rationalization that the positioning of his elbow protected Mr. Garner’s neck and that he exerted no pressure to the throat.”
The Rev. Al Sharpton said Maldonado’s ruling gives NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill no wiggle room.
“Her ruling to me clearly says that the commissioner has to terminate him. I do not see how he could give a logical, legal or police policy reason to do anything less,” Sharpton said. “It would make a mockery of having police trials if you have a decision that’s not ambiguous at all to be ignored .... There’s no gray area here.”
Video of Garner’s death, first published by the Daily News, showed Pantaleo (photo) wrapping one arm under Garner’s right armpit and around his shoulder, and his other arm over Garner’s left shoulder and upper chest.
Maldonado focused on the moment after Pantaleo pulled Garner forward to prevent him from crashing through a store window.
“[Pantaleo] had the opportunity to readjust his grip from a prohibited chokehold to a less lethal alternative; he did not,” the judge wrote.
She added that Pantaleo kept the grip even as Garner lay on his side. “It was here that Respondent’s conduct escalated from a Patrol Guide violation to criminal recklessness,” she wrote.
“This tribunal finds that there is only one appropriate penalty for the grave misconduct that yielded an equally grave result — [Pantaleo] can no longer remain a New York City police officer,” Maldonado wrote.
The decision to fire or retain Pantaleo, a 13-year veteran, sits with O’Neill.
“The judge’s report confirms what I have been saying for more than five years: Pantaleo used a banned chokehold, murdered my son and should have been fired years ago,” Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, said in a statement Sunday night. “Judge Maldonado also confirmed that other officers’ testimony was unreliable.”
The NYPD, Pantaleo’s lawyer, Stuart London, and a representative of the Police Benevolent Association all did not immediately return messages seeking comment Sunday.