We know the facts – so why the stall?

ON JULY 17, 2014, NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo choked Eric Garner to death. Garner was unarmed, nonviolent and being questioned for a petty offense. That was more than 800 days ago. For nearly two years — after the Staten Island grand jury failed to indict Pantaleo — Justice Department officials said they were investigating the case for civil rights violations.

Now, the federal prosecutors and FBI agents who were overseeing the probe in Brooklyn have ceded control of the investigation to a new DOJ team. It has been speculated that the initial team intended to close the case without charges, but whatever the situation is, it’s now what my wife would call a “hot mess.”

The entire ordeal between Eric Garner and the NYPD officers who were hassling him was filmed by a bystander. The video was posted online almost immediately. It has been viewed by millions of people around the world. We know what happened. Evidence and witnesses are not lacking.

I’ve said this many times, but I believe these teams aren’t actually investigating, they are stalling. On the “Tom Joyner Morning Show” a few weeks ago, several journalists, including myself, had the chance to ask Attorney General Loretta Lynch some questions about injustice in America. One of the questions we asked was about the status of this case and others that the DOJ claims to be investigating. What we got in response from Lynch were platitudes. I left that conversation with zero clarity on what’s taking so long and when such investigations will be complete.

We’re going on three years since Eric Garner was killed. We know who did it. We know where it happened. We know all of the circumstances surrounding his death. We know that autopsy results declared the death a homicide. We know that chokeholds have been banned by the NYPD for a decade. We know that Eric Garner was breathing just fine before he declared 11 times for the world to hear “I can’t breathe.”

An investigation to determine if Eric Garner’s civil rights were violated shouldn’t have taken longer than a few weeks.

It’s been more than 110 weeks. This is completely and totally outrageous. We’re not even talking about a murder case at this point, but just a determination that Pantaleo intended to violate Garner’s civil rights. You’d think we were waiting on them to release their plan to land a man on Mars.

In my circles, it’s not politically correct to criticize Lynch or President Obama — but they have dropped the ball on this. Even that’s an understatement. In two weeks, we are electing a new President. The Obama administration only has about three months left in office. From all indications, they are not even going to complete this investigation during the Obama presidency.

Here’s what I know — if President George W. Bush and his conservative administration had stalled out on such a simple investigation for 110 weeks, we’d be calling for their heads. It increasingly seems like Obama, Lynch and this administration, for all of their rhetoric about police brutality, aren’t seriously committed to holding officers like Daniel Pantaleo accountable.

Of course he violated Eric Garner’s civil rights. Garner did nothing at all to warrant such violence. If choking a man to death doesn’t violate his civil rights, then what the hell does? Plus, the NYPD has been forced to settle brutality lawsuits on behalf of Pantaleo before. This was not his first foray into misconduct.

As officials appear to be playing an insulting game of hot potato with this case, passing it from department to department, and doing nothing, the family of Eric Garner is kept in limbo — hanging on to a tiny sliver of hope that they will get some type of justice. Meanwhile, the NYPD continues to protect Officer Daniel Pantaleo and refuses to hold him accountable for his egregious actions.

None of this is remotely acceptable.