The facts say: Do not fire Daniel Pantaleo
Emotions are running high today, as a top NYPD official will deliver her recommendation on whether to fire Officer Daniel Pantaleo for his role in the death of Eric Garner.
But emotion shouldn’t determine the fate of a cop who was just trying to do his job.
Instead, a dispassionate look at the facts should lead Commissioner James O’Neill to one conclusion: Pantaleo should not be fired.
Here’s what happened. Local Staten Island store owners in 2014 had called to complain, on numerous occasions, about illegal sales of cigarettes on the streets — and Garner had been arrested for the crime there several times before, despite multiple warnings.
When Pantaleo and his partner arrived on scene, they saw Garner doing it again. The police weren’t harassing him, they weren’t acting with bias, they were responding to a call. When they confronted him, he refused to answer their questions, refused to be taken into custody.
“I’m tired of it,” Garner said. “It stops today . . . Please just leave me alone.”
People can’t just tell police officers to “go away” to break the law in peace. Garner was resisting arrest, and Pantaleo tried to subdue him.
Garner was 6-foot-3, 350 pounds, much taller and bigger than Pantaleo. The cop reached across Garner with what Pantaleo’s lawyer argues is a “seat-belt hold” to restrain him from behind. Pantaleo’s arm shifted toward Garner’s neck as the two went to the ground. The officer argues, convincingly, that this was inadvertent.
Medical reports differ over whether the officer’s move constituted a “chokehold” barred by the department and how much it played a role in Garner’s death. Yet Garner’s health — he suffered from heart disease, asthma and obesity — was definitely a contributing factor, as the city’s medical examiner found.
Indeed, at the NYPD’s administrative trial against Pantaleo in June, the chief medical examiner for St. Louis, Michael Graham, testified that medical issues were responsible for Garner’s death, not a chokehold.
That EMTs who arrived minutes later failed to administer proper treatment was yet another factor.
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Prosecutors on Staten Island presented the case to a grand jury, and after two months, it declined to indict Pantaleo. The US Department of Justice then took up the case, and local FBI investigators and federal prosecutors agreed that charges should not be brought. Last month, US Attorney General William Barr, too, said Pantaleo should not face charges.
There really isn’t enough evidence to show that the officer applied excessive force. And under such circumstances, how can anyone justify firing him? Especially when the EMTs were merely suspended.
If Pantaleo is fired, how are other cops to be expected to do their duty — confronting someone who resists arrest — knowing they may lose their jobs, and careers, if things go wrong?
Garner’s death is a tragedy, as is any loss of life on the streets of New York City. The slow response by police and medical officers to Garner’s “I can’t breathe” was wrong. That’s why the city agreed to pay his family $5.9 million.
But anti-cop activists and demagogic pols have distorted this case, inflaming it for their own purposes.
Clear-headed New Yorkers will understand that tragedies like this can’t always be avoided. Garner’s resistance to being arrested, his medical problems and mistakes by the cops and EMTs all helped bring about the worst possible outcome. Making a scapegoat of one police officer isn’t the answer.
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