New York police officer sacked over choking death of Eric Garner
Daniel Pantaleo, a white New York City police officer, has been sacked for putting an African-American man in a banned chokehold just before his death five years ago in a case that fueled the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement as the nation confronted a long history of police brutality.
New York Police Commissioner James O'Neill told reporters on Monday Pantaleo had been dismissed from the force over the death of Eric Garner during an arrest in 2014.
Garner, a 43-year-old father of six, was detained by New York police on July 17, 2014 for allegedly selling cigarettes illegally in Staten Island, one of the five boroughs of New York City.
Garner died on a sidewalk during his arrest by four policemen who pulled him to the ground while he gasped his final words “I can’t breathe”.
His death, which was caught on bystander video, played a key role in the rise of the movement decrying excessive use of force by police officers against black men and teens in the United States.
One of the officers involved in Garner's arrest, Pantaleo, had his arm tightly around the suspect's neck, while another pressed his head to the pavement. Garner then stopped moving and was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.
The New York City Chief Medical Examiner’s office ruled that Garner’s death was a homicide induced by “compression of neck (choke hold), compression of chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police.”
In 2014, a grand jury in New York declined to charge Pantaleo, who has been assigned to desk duty since Garner’s death and faced a disciplinary trial in May at New York City Police Department (NYPD) headquarters.
US police officers fatally shoot hundreds of people every year, with a disproportionate number of those being black.
Garner’s death, and other high-profile police killings of black men and teens in other US cities triggered a wave of nationwide protests in 2014 and 2015.
Civil rights advocates said the decision to acquit the officer was upsetting but to be expected. Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, and the Reverend Al Sharpton said they were outraged and heartbroken.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is also a Democratic candidate for the White House, condemned the decision.
“Years ago, we put our faith in the federal government to act,” de Blasio said in a statement. “We won’t make that mistake again.”
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