Garner’s death will not lead to federal charges
NEW YORK >> The Justice Department will not bring federal charges against a New York City police officer in the death of Eric Garner, ending a yearslong inquiry into a case that sharply divided officials and prompted national protests over excessive force by police.
The U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, Richard P. Donoghue, announced the decision not to bring criminal civil rights charges Tuesday morning, one day before the fifth anniversary of Garner’s death.
Bystanders filmed the arrest that led to his death on their cellphones, recording Garner as he gasped “I can’t breathe,” and his dying words became a rallying cry for protesters across the nation. His death was one of several fatal encounters between black people and the police that catalyzed the national Black Lives Matter movement.
A Staten Island grand jury declined to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who was seen on the video wrapping his arm around Garner’s neck, and the federal investigation dragged on for years amid internal disputes in the Justice Department, both under former President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump.
In the end, Attorney General William Barr made the call not to seek a civil rights indictment against Pantaleo on civil rights charges, just before the five-year deadline for filing charges expired.
On Tuesday morning, Donoghue called Garner’s death a tragedy but said “the evidence does not support charging Police Officer Pantaleo with a federal civil rights violation.” He went over the entire arrest step by step and said the government could not prove Pantaleo willfully used excessive force to violate Garner’s rights as required under the law.
The decision extinguishes the hopes of the Garner family and their supporters that Pantaleo might face federal prosecution in a case that ignited demonstrations and debates over the use of force by police officers and led to changes in policing practices across the United States.
After meeting with prosecutors, Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, denounced the decision, saying she would keep pushing to hold the officers involved in the arrest accountable.
“We might not never know justice in the DOJ, but I think there will be justice, and we’re going to keep fighting,” Carr said. “We’re not going away, so you can forget that.”
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who was standing with her, said, “Five years ago, Eric Garner was choked to death; today the federal government choked Lady Justice, and that is why we are outraged.”
They also called on the city to fire Pantaleo.
In June, the Police Department finished a disciplinary trial to determine if Pantaleo should be fired or punished in some other way for using what appeared to be a chokehold, which the department had banned more than two decades ago.
It is ultimately up to Commissioner James P. O’Neill, as the final arbiter of police discipline, to decide whether to fire Pantaleo or take less drastic action, like docking vacation time.
But O’Neill will not make a formal decision until the police administrative judge who oversaw the disciplinary trial renders her verdict, and he is still awaiting her report, a spokesman for the department, Philip T. Walzak, said in a statement.
“Because of the need to protect the integrity of the process, the NYPD will not comment further at this time,” the statement said.
Pantaleo, 34, has been on desk duty without a shield or a gun since Garner died, a status that has allowed him to accrue pay and pension benefits.
Garner, who was 43, died on a Staten Island sidewalk July 17, 2014, after Pantaleo wrapped an arm around his neck from behind and took him to the ground and other officers put their weight on him, compressing his chest against the pavement.
The officers had been ordered to arrest him for selling untaxed cigarettes, and he resisted them. A medical examiner testified at the disciplinary hearing that the pressure on Garner’s neck and chest set in motion a fatal asthma attack.
Donoghue said prosecutors did a rigorous analysis of the video and other evidence, but in the end they did not believe they had sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Pantaleo committed a crime.
To prove criminal conduct, he said, the government had to convince a jury that in the middle of a dynamic arrest Pantaleo willfully made a clear decision in his mind to apply a chokehold, a burden prosecutors did not believe they could meet.
None of the New York officers involved in Garner’s death have been charged with a crime or disciplined by the Police Department, a fact that has enraged the Garner family and various advocacy groups devoted to holding the police accountable for abuses of power.
Garner’s family members including Carr met with federal prosecutors and Sharpton on Tuesday morning.
The state grand jury declined to bring charges against Pantaleo in December 2014, after the police officer testified in his own defense that he did not put Garner into a chokehold, a maneuver that is prohibited by the New York Police Department, and that he feared that he would be pushed through a storefront window during the struggle.
But a federal investigation into Garner’s death proceeded, sharply dividing the Justice Department under four attorneys general and two presidents.
The attorney general at the time of the death, Eric Holder, said that evidence strongly suggested that the federal government should bring charges against Pantaleo, even though it is notoriously hard to prosecute police officers for deaths in custody and the government might lose.
While career civil rights prosecutors agreed with Holder, prosecutors under the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, Loretta Lynch, sharply disagreed. Because Pantaleo had testified that he intended to put Garner into a takedown hold that would not restrict his breathing, it was not clear whether the dead man’s civil rights had been violated.