Judge says NYPD officer was ‘untruthful’ when he denied putting Eric Garner in a choke hold

The administrative judge presiding over the disciplinary trial of the cop who is accused of choking Eric Garner in 2014 said the officer was ‘untruthful’ about his role in the death.

Internal Affairs investigators interviewed Officer Daniel Pantaleo on December 8, 2014. The transcript of that interrogation was introduced during his disciplinary trial in place of Pantaleo’s direct testimony.

During their questioning, the investigators asked Pantaleo to describe the chokehold maneuver banned by the NYPD in 1993 due to its lethal risks.

Pantaleo defined the action as a move where ‘you use your forearm, grasped with the other hand, and you pull back with your forearm onto the windpipe, preventing him from breathing.’ 

Even after being forced to watch the video of himself wrapping his forearm around Garner’s neck before grasping one hand with the other and pulling back, Pantaleo maintained that he didn’t choke the Staten Island father of six.

The full text of NYPD administrative judge Rosemarie Maldonado’s 46-page opinion recommending officer Daniel Pantaleo be fired following his departmental disciplinary trial was released Sunday by the New York Times

Eric Garner was killed on July 17, 2014. A New York medical examiner ruled his death a homicide due to an asthma attack caused by Pantaleo’s chokehold

‘No, I did not,’ Pantaleo said when asked by investigators if he’d applied a chokehold.

That explanation didn’t make sense to NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Trials Rosemarie Maldonado who ultimately recommended on August 2 that Pantaleo be fired.

The final decision on Pantaleo’s fate still rests with Police Commissioner James O’Neil.

The full text of Maldonado’s ruling following Pantaleo’s disciplinary trial was published Sunday by the New York Times.

In the 46-page document, Maldonado described Pantaleo’s chokehold denial as ‘implausible and self-serving.’

‘I found [Pantaleo’s] uncorroborated hearsay statements explaining his actions to be untruthful,’ Maldonado wrote. ‘First, I found [Pantaleo] to be disingenuous when he viewed the video and denied using a chokehold, even though his actions were completely consistent with his own erroneous and restrictive definition of the Patrol Guide prohibition.’

The final decision on Pantaleo’s fate still rests with Police Commissioner James O’Neil (left)

Maldonado went on to say that the evidence contradicted Pantaleo’s rationalization that the positioning of his elbow protected Garner from being choked and that Pantaleo’s police academy instructor, retired Sgt. Russell Jung, gave ‘unpersuasive testimony on critical factual issues.’

‘Specifically, [Pantaleo’s] self-serving version of events failed to satisfactorily account for the uncontroverted medical evidence of hemorrhaging in Mr. Garner’s anterior neck muscles and thus tribunal’s own assessment of the video evidence capturing [Pantaleo] clasping his hands and pressing his forearm against Mr. Garner’s neck…

‘This tribunal finds that Respondent used a prohibited chokehold as defined by the Patrol Guide during this physical encounter,’ Maldonado continued. ‘The preponderance of the credible evidence established that Respondent’s use of a prohibited chokehold was reckless and constituted a gross deviation from the standard of conduct established for a New York Police officer.’

Pantaleo was suspended from the force on August 2 after Maldonado’s ruling was issued. He spent five years on modified desk duty and received multiple pay raises, including a 14 percent salary increase in 2016 to an annual total of just shy of $120,000 including overtime, according to Think Progress and the New York Daily News.

Commissioner O’Neill has said he will issue his final ruling on disciplining Pantaleo before September 1.