The officer at the center of the Eric Garner case has been suspended by the NYPD after a judge recommended he be fired:
YAHOO NEWS – The New York Police Department has suspended Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who was accused of using a chokehold in the 2014 death of Eric Garner.
An administrative judge recommended that he be fired on Friday.
Deputy Commissioner Phil Walzak says that it is longstanding department practice to suspend an officer when there’s been a recommendation that he be fired.
The judge’s findings were provided to his lawyer and the city agency that acted as a prosecutor at his department trial.
Pantaleo’s lawyer will have about two weeks to submit responses before Police Commissioner James O’Neill makes a final decision on punishment.
If the commissioner follows through with the judge’s recommendation and fires Pantaleo, the head of the largest police union in New York City says he will lose the department:
The head of New York City’s largest police union says an administrative judge’s recommendation to fire Officer Daniel Pantaleo over the 2014 chokehold death of Eric Garner is “pure political insanity.”
The police department says Commissioner James O’Neill will make a final decision on punishment this month.
Police Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch said in a statement Friday that if O’Neill goes along with the recommendation, “it will paralyze the NYPD for years to come.”
Lynch said O’Neill knows that if he affirms “this horrendous decision, he will lose his police department.”
A grand jury chose not to indict Pantaleo for a reason. Politicians keep citing this ‘illegal chokehold’ as the issue here, but the police union has always maintained that Pantaleo used a proper takedown method. And let’s not forget, Garner was resisting arrest. As a big man, it required a lot of force to bring him down.
On a related note I was sickened at the Democratic debate at how de Blasio and the other 2020 Democrats were attacking Pantaleo. They treat him like he’s a bad cop, when in reality he was just trying to do his job in a tough situation.