Cop who held Eric Garner in fatal chokehold faces department trial monday
It’s been a long time coming but a cop who put Eric Garner in a banned choke hold that killed him in 2014, will finally face a departmental trial after a judge blocked an effort by his law team to delay the case further. ...
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It’s been a long time coming but the cop who put Eric Garner in a banned chokehold that killed him in 2014, will finally face a departmental trial after a judge blocked an effort by his legal team to delay the case further.
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Daniel Pantaleo will now go to trial May 13, after Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Joan Madden decided on Thursday against issuing an injunction that would have stopped the trial from commencing on Monday, The NY Daily News reports.
“It’s been five years since this tragic incident,” Judge Madden said. “And the Garner family, the police officer and the public should have resolution of these issues in this trial.”
Since Garner’s controversial death that set the wheels in motion for the Black Lives Matter movement, there has been no one held accountable for the unarmed man’s killing as cops swarmed around him and one choked him until he couldn’t breathe – something Garner yelled out 11 times.
The July 17, 2014 cellphone video caught NYPD Officer Pantaleo plain as day on camera with his arm wrapped around Garner’s neck as he forced him to the ground to arrest him for selling loose cigarettes.
Garner died at the scene. The city medical examiner’s report — as well as an independent autopsy ordered by Garner’s family—both found the illegal chokehold tactic had been used.
The NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau, maintain Garner’s own health problems caused his death.
A Staten Island grand jury refused to indict Pantaleo when his case was brought before it back in December of 2014.
Pantaleo’s legal team tried and failed to get the judge to postpone the departmental trial.
Stu London, Pantaleo’s lawyer said he plans to argue that the cop used a departmental take-down method not a chokehold.
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