Supporters of Eric Garner rallied at city hall Wednesday demanding that NYPD commissioner James O’Neill fire chokehold cop Daniel Pantaleo — as the Civilian Complaint Review Board and Pantaleo’s lawyers hit a Wednesday deadline to respond to a judge’s recommendation he be canned.
“My mother and I have been fighting for the last five years,” said Elisha Flagg Garner, the late man’s sister, said at the rally. “It’s a sad situation that [Mayor] de Blasio continues to drag his feet and my mother has no relief.”
CCRB Chairman Frederick Davie echoed the call at the board’s monthly meeting.
“It long has been said that justice delayed is justice denied,” he said at the board’s monthly meeting. “For far too long, for five years, justice has been delayed. My hope as chair of the CCRB and as a New Yorker, my hope is that it will not be denied any longer.”
Pantaleo was seen on a widely-circulated cell phone video putting 43-year-old Garner in what appears to be a chokehold while trying to restrain him in 2014.
Garner can be heard in the video repeatedly shouting, “I can’t breathe!” — which became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement — as he’s wrestled to the pavement during the arrest. He was pronounced dead shortly thereafter at an area hospital.
The CCRB prosecuted the case against the cop in an administrative hearing in June. In a 45-page report this month, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Trials Rosemarie Maldonado recommended he be fired.
The two sides had until Wednesday to file written arguments for or against the recommendation before the case goes to NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill for a final decision.
Pantaleo’s lawyer, Stu London, did not respond to calls seeking comment Wednesday.
Pantaleo was put on modified assignment two days after Garner’s death, which was later ruled a homicide by the city medical examiner’s office.
In December 2014, a Staten Island grand jury declined to indict Pantaleo, finding “no reasonable cause” to bring charges against the 34-year-old cop.
In July 2015, almost a year to the date of Garner’s death, his family settled a lawsuit against the city for $5.9 million.
Then-Attorney General Eric Holder pledged an “expeditious” investigation five months after Garner’s death, and his successor, former US attorney in Brooklyn Loretta Lynch also vowed to review the case.
But last month, US Attorney Richard Donoghue said the Justice Department couldn’t prove the officer “acted in willful violation of the law” and would not pursue federal charges.
Meanwhile, is rallying support for the cop, with over 14,000 signatures by Wednesday evening, calling the judge’s recommendation “politically motivated and does not accurately represent the legal interpretation of the facts of the day.”