NYPD knew five years ago Pantaleo should be fired

NYPD, stop covering for Pantaleo.   The chokehold was illegal for a reason.  A man died because of it.  Being fired would be a lucky break.

Policing While Female and Black

My father, Eric Garner, was killed by New York Police Department officer Daniel Pantaleo a year and a half ago, but last week marks the department’s first official charge of wrongdoing in his case. The charge was not made against Pantaleo, the officer who placed my father in a fatal—and illegal— chokehold, but against Sgt. Kizzy Adonis, one of two supervising officers at the scene.

We know Sgt. Adonis wasn’t even assigned on patrol during the incident. According to Ed Mullins, head of the sergeants’ union, she “responded at her own initiative.” She wasn’t the borough or zone commander. Yet Sgt. Adonis, stripped of her gun and badge, is now being charged on four counts of “failure to supervise.”

[...]

Adonis, who was promoted to sergeant two weeks before my dad’s death, wasn’t part of the team that piled on his back. In the video that captured the incident, we all see Adonis creep away. [...] She went to the ambulance stationed on the corner of Bay Street. According to witnesses at the scene, Adonis spoke to an EMT and made an additional call for assistance—I guess no one else planned on saving my father’s life that day.

[...]

The manager of Bay Beauty Supply heard Sgt. Adonis say to the other officers, “Let up, you got him already.”

[...]

If Sgt. Adonis can be charged with failure to supervise, then I expect the other sergeant at the scene to be charged as well.

  Erica Garner

Do not hold your breath.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Carte Blanche

And in this case...license to kill.

“I became a police officer to help people and to protect those who can’t protect themselves. It is never my intention to harm anyone and I feel very bad about the death of Mr. Garner. My family and I include him and his family in our prayers and I hope that they will accept my personal condolences for their loss,” [NYPD Officer Daniel] Pantaleo said in a statement, according to NBC New York’s Steven Bognar.

  IBTimes

I'm guessing not.

I wonder if he feels bad about these incidents:

Pantaleo was sued twice in the past for alleged racially motivated misconduct while on the job. Two black men accused him in 2012 of subjecting them to an illegal strip search in broad daylight. Pantaleo purportedly “tapped” each man’s testicles during the search, which he claimed was a bid to discover any contraband, the Daily News reported. The suit was settled last January.

In a second lawsuit, a man named Rylawn Walker accused a group of NYPD officers that included Pantaleo of arresting him despite the fact that he was “committing no crime at the time and was not acting in a suspicious manner” and of including misleading data on a police report to justify the arrest, the Staten Island Advance reported. Charges against the man were ultimately dismissed.

According to Jason Leventhal, Collins and Rice's lawyer, Pantaleo had falsely claimed that he saw crack and heroin in plain view, on the vehicle's back seat, allowing the officers to arrest everyone in the car. Wilson admitted the drugs were in his pocket, not in plain view, when he ultimately took a plea deal, Leventhal said.

Collins and Rice each received $15,000 settlements from the city, Leventhal said.

"One of the fundamental, most important things a police officer needs to do is to tell the truth," Leventhal said. "He has no right to strip-search anyone in the middle of the street."

  silive

Apparently, he can do any damned thing he wants to do.

Leventhal, who regularly handles civil rights cases lodged against the NYPD, said that based on the Garner video, Pantaleo ignored a "life-or-death rule of the NYPD patrol guide" prohibiting chokeholds, and ignored the department's use-of-force continuum.

"You don't just immediately jump on the guy's neck and choke him," Leventhal said. "I think it's a depraved indifference to human life to choke him like that."

He’s not going on trial. As I said,…..

The Other Grand Jury - Part 3

A repeat.

No indictment will be brought against a New York City police officer in the police chokehold death of Eric Garner on Staten Island in July. The incident, captured on a video that went viral, fueled debates about how U.S. police use force, particularly against minorities.

[...]

After the decision was announced, the Garner family lawyer was quoted by BBC News as saying he was "astonished based on the evidence of the video tape and the medical examiner, that this grand jury at this time wouldn't indict for anything.”

[...]

Garner was stopped on suspicion of selling untaxed cigarettes back in July. The black, 43-year-old father of six is shown on video telling officers to leave him alone before Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who is white, put him in a chokehold — a restraint tactic banned by the NYPD in 1993. Garner is also heard on the video saying "I can't breathe" multiple times.

Garner suffered a heart attack after officers compressed his neck and chest, the medical examiner ruled, calling his death a homicide.

  alJazeera

But there’s no need for a trial, according to the Grand Jury.  I'd like to say "unbelievable", but I can't.

A Justice Department official later confirmed that Attorney General Eric Holder would announce a federal investigation into Garner’s death.

Protests broke out following the grand jury decision in Staten Island and Manhattan. Eric Garner's father Ben sought to keep demonstrations non-violent, telling one angry bystander: "Let's keep the peace, we all are hurting."

Stay tuned.

“You will not sully his name with violence or vandalism,” [New York City Mayor Bill ] de Blasio said. “The only thing that has ever worked is peaceful protest, non violenct activism.

Riiiiiiight.

And....the guy who filmed the chokehold.....he's been indicted by a grand jury on weapons possession.

The Other Grand Jury - Part 2

You know Eric Garner - the man who was put in a choke hold for allegedly selling cigarettes illegally on a New York street, and choked to death while screaming that he couldn't breathe.

Without revealing exact numbers of how many officers will be put on the streets ahead of the announcement, [New York Police Commissioner Bill ] Bratton said that officers have been told to walk a fine line between allowing the protesters to express their anger while keeping public order.

"If they engage in criminal activity, such as vandalism -- actual crime -- they will be arrested, quite simply," he said. "But we have the ability to have a level of tolerance -- breathing room, if you will," Bratton said.

  ABC7

Wow. I wonder if he could have chosen any worse phrasing.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Other Grand Jury

Surely they won't be making the same mistake.

New York officials are preparing for likely protests as a grand jury decides whether to charge police in the death of a black man subjected to a banned choke hold, although they are aiming to avoid the kind of violence that engulfed Ferguson, Missouri last month after the grand jury decision in the Michael Brown case.

[...]

It is not clear when the grand jury will rule.

[...]

'We're just praying and hoping that things don't get out of hand,' said Bobby Digi, a Staten Island activist and businessman. 'We've been doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work to just try to get temperaments at bay.'

  alJazeera

I think this is going to take more than praying and hoping.

Hazel Dukes, president of the New York state chapter of the NAACP civil rights group, said she was 'very worried' about the possible response if no charges are brought by the Staten Island grand jury, which has been meeting in secret since August.

Yes, I imagine that would just about blow the roof. As well it should.

Garner suffered a heart attack after officers compressed his neck and chest as they restrained him for selling loose cigarettes, the medical examiner ruled, calling his death a homicide.

A 400-pound asthmatic Staten Island dad died Thursday after a cop put him in a chokehold and other officers appeared to slam his head against the sidewalk, video of the incident shows.

“I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” Eric Garner, 43, repeatedly screamed after at least five NYPD officers took him down in front of a Tompkinsville beauty supply store when he balked at being handcuffed.

[...]

Police officials said Garner had a history of arrests for selling untaxed cigarettes. Cops said they observed him selling his wares Thursday on Bay St. and moved in for an arrest.

  NY Daily News

And went for the kill.

A law enforcement source said the incident was troubling.

“A guy is dead in our custody. That is always a potential problem,” the source said.

I sure hate it when the law is troubled with a potential problem.

And, perhaps they want to rethink this as well.

Investigators are considering whether to charge Michael Brown's stepfather with attempting to incite a riot for urging a crowd in Ferguson, Missouri, to "burn this bitch down" as part of a larger inquiry into violence after a grand jury declined to indict a white police officer in the shooting death of the unarmed black teenager, authorities told NBC News on Tuesday.

  NBC News

Bob McCullough - the same prosecutor who called the Wilson Grand Jury - will decide whether to charge him.