I n July, it will be five years since Eric Garner was killed. Now the NYPD has a new defense for Daniel Pantaleo , the New York Police Depa...
In July, it will be five years since Eric Garner was killed. Now the NYPD has a new defense for Daniel Pantaleo, the New York Police Department officer who was caught on video using an illegal chokehold to kill Garner for a nonviolent offense — he didn’t put him in a chokehold.
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The New York Post reports that yesterday Pantaleo’s defense attorney Stu London said NYPD Chief Surgeon Eli Kleinman said Garner was never in a chokehold, “Kleinman concluded there were no injuries associated with a chokehold, including to Garner’s trachea, and that Garner’s poor health — he was obese and suffered from asthma, hypertension and diabetes — contributed to his death, London said.”
London said, “It basically exonerates Officer Pantaleo. It indicates that he didn’t use a chokehold. It indicates that the prior compromised cardiovascular system of [Garner] really is what lead to his demise. And it couldn’t be more positive for Officer Pantaleo.”
He continued, “I think it’s definitely important because if the Police Department thought his opinion would be not only informative but material and relevant certainly this tribunal should feel the same way.”
The Garner family hired their own medical expert who determined a chokehold killed 43-year-old Garner.
However, it doesn’t take an expert to see Garner was being choked to death on camera as he repeatedly said, “I can’t breathe.”
Garner was approached by undercover NYPD officers on July 17, 2014, for the alleged offense of selling untaxed loose cigarettes. When officers failed at handcuffing him for the nonviolent misdemeanor, Pantaleo employed an illegal chokehold that ultimately killed Garner. The entire deadly episode was captured on cellphone video and filmed by a bystander. Garner’s final words “I can’t breathe” — became a rallying call for social justice advocates who saw his death as a murder.
The New York Police Department (NYPD) only began disciplinary proceedings against Officer Daniel Pantaleo in June of 2018. A grand jury decided not to indict Pantaleo but the Department of Justice has until July 17 to bring a civil rights case against Pantaleo.
We are hoping some type of justice will served for the Garner family, including for his daughter Erica Garner, who died of heart complications on December 30, 2017. She was only 27 years old.
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[ione_media_gallery id="3828001" overlay="true"]* This article was originally published here
