This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A judge has recommended that Daniel Pantaleo, the New York police officer implicated in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, be fired.

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Garner died on 17 July 2014, after Pantaleo placed him in a chokehold and pulled him to the ground. Video footage showed Garner pleading with police officers, repeatedly saying: “I can’t breathe.” The phrase became a national rallying cry for activists protesting against police brutality.

The NYPD’s deputy commissioner of trials, Rosemarie Maldonado, said in a report to the police commissioner, James O’Neill, that Pantaleo should be fired. The decision is a recommendation, rather than a binding verdict. The final decision will be taken by O’Neill, who has two weeks to decide Pantaleo’s fate.

Garner’s daughter, Emerald Garner, said O’Neill must follow the recommendation.

“This has been a long battle. Five years too long, and finally somebody has said there is some information that this cop has done something wrong,” she said at a press conference.

Garner’s family has called for congressional hearings on police misconduct and for a law that would ban police from using certain methods of restraint.

Emerald Garner added: “Commissioner O’Neill, fire Pantaleo. That’s all we’re asking. We’re asking for congressional hearings, we’re gonna keep fighting for the Eric Garner law. But five years is too long. Commissioner O’Neill, do your job.”

Gwen Carr, Garner’s mother, said the recommendation had brought her “some relief”, but criticized the NYPD and New York City’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, for having “put up roadblocks and delays every step of the way”.

Carr said: “My son deserves more than recommendations – he deserves justice. New Yorkers deserve to know that police who kill our children and those who try to cover it up will be fired from the NYPD so that they don’t get paid with our taxpayer dollars to be a danger to us.”

She added: “I will continue to fight – and I’m asking everyone who supports me to continue to fight – until there is accountability for Eric and for all New Yorkers, and until Pantaleo and all of these officers who engaged in misconduct related to Eric’s murder have been fired from the NYPD.”

Police stopped Garner on suspicion of selling loose cigarettes on Staten Island. Video of that incident, filmed by a passerby, shows Pantaleo putting his arm round Garner’s neck in a chokehold, which is banned under police policy. Garner lost consciousness and was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

The NYPD said Pantaleo had been suspended, “effective today”, while he awaits O’Neill’s verdict.

The officer’s continued employment became an issue in the second Democratic debate on Wednesday, when protesters chanted “Fire Pantaleo” at De Blasio. De Blasio faced criticism from other 2020 candidates, with the New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand saying Pantaleo should have been fired.

The mayor’s detractors are unlikely to be satisfied by his milquetoast response on Friday afternoon. De Blasio said the decision was “fair and impartial”, and would hopefully “bring the Garner family a sense of closure and the beginning of some peace”.

Asked by a reporter if he agreed with Maldonado’s recommendation, De Blasio said: “I believe the process was fair and just.”

Gillibrand was much more forthright.

“Eric Garner should be alive today and his family deserves justice. I have said it before and will say it again, Officer Pantaleo should be fired,” she said.

In July, the attorney general, William Barr, declined to bring charges against Pantaleo. In 2014, a grand jury in Staten Island declined to charge Pantaleo, despite a medical examiner ruling Garner’s death a homicide. Garner’s family reached a $5.9m settlement with New York City authorities in 2015.

“Justice also means getting to the bottom of why Attorney General Barr ordered the justice department not to prosecute the police officer in this needless death and whether and why the civil rights division was overruled. We need answers about the government’s failure to seek justice in this disturbing case,” Gillbrand said.

The Rev Al Sharpton, civil rights activist and the head of the National Action Network, said it was the right decision, but that the judge’s recommendation was “not justice for the Garner family”.

Sharpton said: “The commissioner needs to immediately, unequivocally accept the recommendation of the judge, and do it right away.”

He added: “This decision is a decision that is good for the citizens of the city. But make no mistake about it: this is not justice for the Garner family, because justice for the Garner family would have been a federal proceeding or a criminal proceeding in the local courts.”

Eyewitness News (@ABC7NY) WATCH: Eric Garner's daughter, Emerald, reacts to a judge's recommendation that NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo should be fired. More: pic.twitter.com/kIka6e20e8

Despite nationwide uproar, Pantaleo kept his job with the NYPD, albeit on desk duty. He was paid more than $120,000 in 2017, according to city payroll records. On Friday, the New York City civilian complaint review board (CCRB), which oversees the NYPD, urged O’Neill to follow the recommendation of Pantaleo’s dismissal.

The review board chair, Fred Davie, said: “Today’s decision confirms what the civilian complaint review board always has maintained: Daniel Pantaleo committed misconduct on July 17, 2014, and his actions caused the death of Eric Garner.”

Davie added: “The evidence the CCRB’s prosecutors brought forth at trial was more than sufficient to prove that Pantaleo is unfit to serve. Commissioner O’Neill must uphold this verdict and dismiss Pantaleo from the department, as was recommended by both the CCRB and the deputy commissioner of trials.”

The American Civil Liberties Union welcomed the verdict, but said the NYPD must learn from the incident.

Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the ACLU of New York, said: “This case goes beyond just one officer. Commissioner O’Neill owes it to the Garner family and all of New York to ensure that this will never happen again.”