Daniel Pantaleo isn’t going down without a fight.
The embattled NYPD cop, who was suspended Friday after an administrative judge recommended he be fired for the 2014 death of Eric Garner, will push back if Police Commissioner James O’Neill fires him, his lawyer and “enraged” police union officials vowed.
“He wants to fight going forward — we will do that,” Pantaleo’s lawyer, Stuart London, told reporters. “We are cautiously optimistic the police commissioner does not want to lose the officers in the city . . . and will come to Officer Pantaleo’s defense.”
NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Trials Rosemarie Maldonado recommended in a 45-page draft report to London and the Civilian Complaint Review Board that Pantaleo be fired over the July 17, 2014, deadly encounter on Staten Island in which Pantaleo subdued Garner with a banned chokehold.
During the takedown by cops, which was captured on video and helped spark the Black Lives Matter movement, Garner cried, “I can’t breathe.”
Police Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch called Friday “one of the saddest and most damaging days in the history of New York City and the New York City Police Departments.
“We just found out that no one will stand up for what’s right against wrong,” the police union chief said. “Our police officers, unfortunately, are in a position of having to protect themselves rather than spending time protecting you.
“The only hope for justice now lies with Police Commissioner O’Neill,” Lynch said. “He knows the message that this decision sends to every cop: We are expendable, and we cannot expect any support from the city we protect. He knows that if he affirms this horrendous decision, he will lose his police department.”
Garner’s daughter Emerald Snipes Garner said the judge’s report “confirms what we already knew.”
“We have waited five years, and the time is now for justice,” she said. “We are calling on Commissioner James O’Neill to follow the recommendation and fire Daniel Pantaleo now.”
Mayor de Blasio, meanwhile, called Maldonado’s decision part of “a fair and impartial” process that finally scrutinized Pantaleo’s encounter with Garner.
Before O’Neill makes a decision on Pantaleo’s fate, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which prosecuted the administrative hearing against Pantaleo, and the cop’s lawyer will have two weeks to submit motions. O’Neill is expected to issue a final determination on 13-year NYPD veteran Pantaleo sometime this month.
The mayor continued to take heat over the case from hecklers at his press conference who shouted “Fire Pantaleo” — similar to how he was interrupted at Wednesday night’s Democratic presidential debate in Detroit.
A handful of protesters also gathered outside police headquarters Friday evening to call for the officer’s dismissal.
Pantaleo, 34, was placed on modified assignment two days after Garner’s death, as were four EMS workers who responded to the scene.
The city medical examiner ruled Garner’s death a homicide.
The case was presented to a Staten Island grand jury to determine if Pantaleo should face criminal charges, but in December 2014, the panel declined to indict the officer.
In July 2015, almost a year to the date Garner died, his family settled its lawsuit against the city for $5.9 million.
Despite the Staten Island grand jury’s vote, federal prosecutors told the Garner family that an investigation into the incident was “ongoing.”
About five months after Garner’s death, then-Attorney General Eric Holder pledged an “expeditious investigation.” Loretta Lynch, the US attorney in Brooklyn who would succeed Holder, also vowed to review the case “as expeditiously as possible.”
But last month, Brooklyn US Attorney Richard Donoghue said that after an extensive investigation, the Justice Department couldn’t prove that Pantaleo “acted in willful violation of the law” — while noting that Garner was not in a chokehold when he repeatedly gasped, “I can’t breathe.”
Additional reporting by Georgett Roberts, Nolan Hicks