A memorial stands for Eric Garner near the place where he died in Staten Island, New... Read More
Grand jurors on New York’s Staten Island reached their decision today after months of testimony in the death of Eric Garner, Richmond County District Attorney Daniel M. Donovan Jr. said. Garner, 43, died July 17 after plain clothes officers led by Daniel Pantaleo sought to handcuff him, forcing him to the ground so they could arrest him for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes.
A bystander’s recording of the incident was
widely circulated, triggering outrage and calls for the officers to be charged, as well as for a federal civil rights prosecution. Today, protests were already beginning, with about 30 protesters lying silently on the ground in Grand Central Station in Manhattan. One had a cardboard sign saying “black lives matter” and “justice 4 Eric” written in black ink.
“Today’s outcome is one that many in our city did not want,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement. “But we also know that this chapter is not yet complete. The grand jury is but one part of the process. There will still be an NYPD internal investigation. And we know the U.S. attorney is continuing her investigation. Should the federal government choose to act, we stand ready to cooperate.”
New York Protests
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“We all agree that demonstrations and free speech are valuable contributions to debate, and that violence and disorder are not only wrong –- but hurt the critically important goals we are trying to achieve together,” he said.
President Barack Obama today promised a “scrupulous” investigation into any cases where there are questions about whether the law has been applied fairly. Without commenting directly on Garner’s death, Obama said the U.S. for too long has failed to act on the mistrust between minority communities and police.
U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch in Brooklyn, New York, Obama’s nominee to replace Eric Holder as U.S. attorney general, has jurisdiction over Staten Island.
Federal Probe
“Because the local investigation has come to a close, the Justice Department will now move forward with its own independent inquiry to determine whether federal civil rights laws have been violated,” Lynch said in an e-mailed statement. “The investigation will be fair and thorough, and it will be conducted as expeditiously as possible.”Donovan said the four-month investigation into the Garner killing focused on finding witnesses, speaking to people who provided medical treatment and consulting with experts in forensic pathology, police policies, procedure and training and emergency medical technicians.
“This matter was of special concern in that an unarmed citizen of our county had died in police custody,” Donovan said. “For that reason, a dedicated grand jury was empaneled exclusively to hear this case, committed to serving in that capacity for the months the investigation would entail.”
While other jurisdictions allow prosecutors to disclose specific details of grand jury proceedings -- such as Missouri - - New York state law doesn’t allow such disclosure, Donovan said.
Information Release
The district attorney said he has asked for court permission to release more information.New York grand juries have 23 members, and a total of 16 must be present to hear evidence and to deliberate, Donovan said. At least 12 jurors who have heard the evidence and the legal instructions must agree there is enough evidence and reasonable cause that the person committed a crime to formally charge them, he said.
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The decision not to indict may fuel tensions on Staten Island, New York civil rights activist Al Sharpton has said. A march there in August to denounce the use of lethal force in Garner’s death attracted at least 3,000 people.
Clear Message
“How can anyone in the community have faith in the system now?” Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based advocate for human rights, said in a statement today. “First Ferguson, now Staten Island. The grand jury’s failure to indict sends the clear message that black lives don’t matter.”Jonathan C. Moore, an attorney for the Garner family, didn’t respond to telephone and e-mail messages seeking comment.
The video of the incident showed Pantaleo applying what appeared to be a chokehold, prohibited by department policy, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton has said.
Garner can be heard repeating “I can’t breathe” as officers force him to the ground.
Easy Indictment
“If this prosecutor had wanted an indictment, he would have gotten one,” said Randolph M. McLaughlin, a civil rights attorney and professor at Pace Law School in White Plains, New York. “I believe it’s difficult for local prosecutors to prosecute the very police officers who they depend on to be witnesses in their own cases. One of the problems with the whole process is that the grand jury process is the only process in America where an elected official can do things in private and no one can see what he does.”The New York City Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Garner’s death a homicide caused by “compression of the neck” and chest, and “prone positioning during physical restraint.” Contributing factors included acute and chronic bronchial asthma, obesity, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease, according to the medical examiner.
“Like millions of New Yorkers, I am saddened by the grand jury’s decision not to indict in the Eric Garner case,” New York City Public Advocate Letitia James said in a statement. “Video footage of the incident clearly shows the banned chokehold that resulted in Mr. Garner’s death and the fact that there will be no public trial is shocking and unconscionable.”
Police Union
Patrick J. Lynch, president of the city’s police union, said Pantaleo’s intention was to “do nothing more” than take Garner into custody and only used a “take-down technique” he learned in training.“No police officer starts a shift intending to take another human being’s life and we are all saddened by this tragedy,” Lynch said in a statement.
Pantaleo, 29, a lifelong resident of Staten Island who has been an NYPD officer for about eight years, said in a statement distributed by the union that he didn’t intend to harm anyone.
De Blasio, 53, the first Democratic mayor of New York in 20 years, promised new training in police tactics for the department’s 35,000 officers in response to Garner’s death, saying that chokeholds haven’t been allowed since the 1980s except “under the most extraordinary situation.”
Grand Jury
The grand jury began meeting in September to review evidence in Garner’s death. Donovan announced the panel would probe the death of Garner on Aug. 19, the same day prosecutors in Missouri announced an investigation into Brown’s killing by Wilson. Wilson, 28, resigned from the Ferguson police force after the grand jury decision in that case.Pantaleo testified for about two hours before the Staten Island grand jury on Nov. 21, London, his lawyer, said in an interview before the decision. The jurors listened intently and asked a lot of questions, he said.
Sharpton’s National Action Network and Garner’s family plan to hold vigils every Tuesday and Thursday until police officers are indicted in the case, or the U.S. government takes over.
Garner’s family gave notice to New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer in October that they plan to sue the NYPD for $75 million over his death.
Difficult Standard
Federal prosecutors have a difficult standard to meet to prevail in civil rights cases over police killings, William Yeomans, a law professor at American University in Washington who served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, said in August.In one of the most high-profile cases, federal prosecutors brought civil-rights charges against four Los Angeles officers involved in the 1991 beating of Rodney King, after they were acquitted in a state court.
The verdict had sparked riots and protests across the country. Two of the officers were convicted on the federal counts, and the other two were acquitted.
Federal prosecutors also brought civil-rights charges against Francis Livoti, an NYPD officer who killed 29-year-old Anthony Baez with a chokehold after an errant football hit Livoti’s car. Livoti was convicted in June 1998 and sentenced to 90 months in prison.
The Justice Department didn’t intervene in the 1999 case of Amadou Diallo, an African immigrant shot 19 times by NYPD officers in the doorway of his apartment building as he reached for a wallet officers contended they thought was a handgun.
The officers, who fired a total of 41 shots at Diallo, were later acquitted by a state court jury.
Bell’s Death
The Justice Department probed the November 2006 killing of another unarmed man, Sean Bell, outside a Queens strip-club just hours before he was to be married, but closed the probe in August 2010 after finding insufficient evidence to pursue civil rights charges.Two NYPD police detectives were acquitted on charges of manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment in April 2008, while a third charged with reckless endangerment was found not guilty.
Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Lynch has highlighted her role on the federal prosecution team that tried New York City police officers accused of sodomizing Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant, while in their custody in 1997.
The lead defendant in that case, Officer Justin Volpe, pleaded guilty midway through the trial, and is serving a 30-year prison term. Three other officers who were convicted of federal charges later had their cases overturned on appeal. One of those officers, Charles Schwarz, was later convicted of perjury and served five years in prison.
Mixed Results
Other grand jury probes into NYPD police killings have had mixed results.A panel decided against indicting an officer in the 2000 death of Patrick Dorismond, a black security guard in Manhattan killed by an undercover narcotics agent who mistook him for a drug dealer. Another officer was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide for the 2003 killing of unarmed West African immigrant Ousmane Zongo in a Manhattan warehouse, and sentenced to five years of probation and community service.
A grand jury in February 2004 declined to indict Officer Richard Neri after he shot and killed 19-year-old Timothy Stansbury. That shooting took place on the roof of a Brooklyn housing project where he lived -- an incident similar to last month’s police killing of Akai Gurley, a 28-year-old man shot to death in an unlit stairwell in another Brooklyn project.
New York Police Commissioner Bratton described that incident as an apparent accident.
Cameras
The Missouri grand jury’s decision not to indict Wilson in Brown’s death has prompted renewed calls for officers to wear body cameras, and Obama said he would ask for $75 million from Congress to supply up to 50,000 devices to police departments.De Blasio and Bratton today announced an experimental program to outfit NYPD officers with body cameras. The largest U.S. police department will begin testing devices this week that digitally record street encounters between officers and civilians.
The video will provide reviewable evidence when an officer’s conduct is questioned, Bratton said.
U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin in Manhattan previously ordered the NYPD to start a pilot program for officers to wear body cameras in determining that the city’s stop-and-frisk tactics violated the Constitution.
An appeals court in Manhattan later delayed enforcement of Scheindlin’s ruling.
Mark Gustas, a 29-year-old secretary who said he knew Eric Garner, said today that he was infuriated by the New York grand jury decision.
“He was a good guy,” Gustas said on the ferry from Manhattan to Staten Island this afternoon. “That officer was wrong -- he used deadly force that was banned by the NYPD,” he said. “He should have been prosecuted.”
Ferguson and the Staten Island case “both spark something in the black community,” he said. “This has been going on for so long, but we’re always hopeful that justice will prevail.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Patricia Hurtado in Federal Court in Manhattan at
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