Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo should be fired for the chokehold incident involving Eric Garner, an NYPD judge ruled.

NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Trials Rosemarie Maldonado had been weighing whether Pantaleo, whom a grand jury declined to indict and whom the feds chose not to hit with civil rights charges, should face department discipline.

Garner’s July 17, 2014, death on Staten Island became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement after cellphone video captured the 43-year-old repeatedly yelling, “I can’t breathe!” while being busted on suspicion of illegally selling loose cigarettes.

Under NYPD rules, the verdict will now go to the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which prosecuted the case, according to Stuart London, Pantaleo’s lawyer. Each side will have two weeks to submit responses to NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill, who can go along with or overrule Maldonado’s verdict.

“This decision is pure political insanity. If it is allowed to stand, it will paralyze the NYPD for years to come,” Police Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch said. “This judge ignored the evidence and trampled P.O. Pantaleo’s due process rights in order to deliver the result that the grandstanding politicians and protesters demanded.

“The only hope for justice now lies with Police Commissioner O’Neill,” the police union boss said. “He knows the message that this decision sends to every cop: We are expendable, and we cannot expect any support from the city we protect. He knows that if he affirms this horrendous decision, he will lose his police department.”

O’Neill has previously declined to say if he will follow the administrative judge’s decision. But law enforcement sources told The Post he will go along with the ruling.

Pantaleo was suspended immediately after the administrative judge’s decision was made public, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Public Information Philip Walzak said in a statement, “as is the longstanding practice in these matters when the recommendation is termination.”

Walzak said O’Neill’s decision on Pantaleo’s employment is expected sometime this month, but that the commissioner has not been provided with a copy of Maldonado’s ruling.

“It has been shared with the CCRB and the defense, for a standard period of final comment from each,” he said. Maldonado “will then deliver the completed report, with those comments, to the police commissioner for final disposition.”

Garner’s family reacted after the ruling, calling on the commissioner to fire Pantaleo.

“This has been a long battle — five years too long,” Emerald Snipes Garner, Eric Garner’s daughter, said Friday in a brief press conference at the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. “And finally somebody has said that there is some information that this cop has done something wrong.”

“Commissioner O’Neill, fire Pantaleo. That’s all we are asking. We are asking for the congressional hearing. We are going to keep fighting for the Eric Garner law,” she said. “But five years is too long. Commissioner O’Neill, do your job.”

The Garner family and supporters have circulated petitions seeking a law that would ban the chokehold allegedly used on the day that Garner died.

But the recommendation is not sitting well with some cops. “I don’t think he should be fired. The man resisted arrest. No matter how minor the charge was, he shouldn’t have resisted arrest. They told him he had to leave and he didn’t leave. He said, ‘No, I’m not going to leave.’ But you guys don’t report that part,” said a high-ranking NYPD source.

“What do you do? Walk away. He grabbed him to get him down to the ground. If his arm slipped while he was going down, that was an accident. The stupid mayor gave them money before there was any trial or anything. That tainted the jury. It’s just ridiculous.”

In a statement Friday, the Civilian Complaint Review Board said the evidence presented by prosecutors at the hearing “was more than sufficient to prove that Pantaleo is unfit to serve.”

Additional reporting by Georgett Roberts