The NYPD on Monday said that after four years it is done waiting and will place Officer Daniel Pantaleo on trial in the chokehold death of Eric Garner.
Deputy Commissioner Lawrence Byrne, the NYPD’s top lawyer, in a letter sent Monday — one day before to the Department of Justice, said that unless the feds by Aug. 31 publicly announce if Pantaleo will be prosecuted the NYPD will soon after serve him with departmental charges, with an eye on a trial at One Police Plaza at the beginning of 2019.
Byrne said the decision was made because the DOJ in the spring told police its probe of Garner’s death is over. The DOJ had no comment about the letter, or the reason for not making its findings known, though Byrne suspects the feds are waiting until the confirmation hearings for Eric Dreiband as assistant attorney general of the Civil Rights Division.
“We feel we’ve given then sufficient time,” Byrne told reporters. “They still have sufficient time…to act, and if they choose, as I said in the letter, if they choose to announce they’re going to file criminal charges we’ll stand down.
“If there’s no announcement then we need to move ahead at this point.”
The letter cited
That means the anticipated case against Officer Daniel Pantaleo — who brought Staten Island husband and father Garner to the ground using a banned chokehold that contributed to his death — will begin “on or promptly after September 1, 2018,” according to a letter dated Monday and sent from the Police Department’s top lawyer, Deputy Commissioner Lawrence Byrne, to a DOJ deputy chief, Paige Fitgerald.
Byrne noted the NYPD has, since the 43-year-old Garner’s death, four years ago Tuesday, delayed its internal disciplinary proceedings “so as not to have an adverse impact on any ongoing federal criminal civil rights investigation or possible federal criminal prosecution.”
But, Bryne added, while the DOJ has regularly updated the NYPD, it is clear”that a defiinite date by which time a final decision by the U.S. DOJ will be rendered in this matter cannot be predicted.”
The letter does not mention any officer by name.
In addition to eyeing Pantaleo, the NYPD has slapped departmental charges against Sgt. Kizzy Adonis, who responded to the scene after the incident — which bystander Ramsey Orta recorded on his cell phone — and is accused of failing to supervise.
Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-metro-garner-doj-20180716-story.html