“I feel the same way I did before this shake-up happened. I feel like no matter who ‘investigates’ the murder of my father, no one will go to jail in the end,” Eric Garner’s daughter, Erica, told the Amsterdam News. “I use Freddie Gray, Tamir Rice and Mike Brown as my examples.”
Skepticism and tepid hope are occupying the same space as news broke Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2016, that in the waning days of President Barack Obama’s administration his Department of Justice is looking to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo. Perhaps, some hopeful social observers have pronounced, the sheets are being pulled off in the police-involved (July 14, 2014) death of Staten Island father Eric Garner, as DOJ Washington D.C civil rights officials have snatched the prolonged, not-yet-adjudicated case from New York federal investigators.
Erica Garner continued, “I’m glad to see Attorney General Lynch is fighting for what is clearly justice, but this problem is bigger than her. Until there is full transparency, accountability and an end to the 13th Amendment, Black lives will continue to be worthless in the eyes of the law. I think that Mayor de Blasio should fire Daniel Pantaleo immediately. He won’t do that because he is an active participant of this cover-up. It is so sad to see the mayor give lip service to families like mine, Amadou Diallo’s or Deborah Danner’s and then tap dance for Pat Lynch and the police union. When I heard his son say that this de Blasio would end the stop-and-frisk era of policing, I believed him. We see what it looks like in reality … more of the same. I heard the lip service that the mayor gave the public concerning the new commissioner—let’s just say so far I’m unimpressed.”
The Garner case rocked the entire city and protests spread worldwide when the video of Garner being choked to death was released and seen by millions in July 2014.
It seemed to be a clear-cut case of use of excessive force by Pantaleo, exacerbated by fellow officers offering no assistance to the dying father as he uttered 11 times that he could not breathe as Pantaleo held him in an NYPD-prohibited chokehold. The impetus for the bold move by DOJ operatives to take up the case seems to have been spurred on by the failure of New York investigators to indict the cop or move further even with the internal police investigation. Frustration did not dampen the fervor of activists who still rally against police brutality even in the wake of the departure of Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and the appointment of his protégé James O’Neill.
The news that the DOJ in the capital was taking over the civil rights case comes in the wake of what some have seen as a series of legal missteps, which include Pantaleo not being indicted by then Staten Island D.A. Daniel Donovan, the still not-concluded NYPD internal investigation and the then Police Commissioner Bill Bratton’s and Mayor Bill de Blasio’s refusal to release the details of any NYPD findings in the internal investigation.
Community skepticism has not been aided by what has happened to Ramsey Orta, the young father who filmed the Garner assault and fatal illegal chokehold. Orta has been arrested several times since the incident and was ultimately sentenced to four years in prison on an unrelated gun charge.
“The pain of Eric Garner’s avoidable death has been compounded by a snail’s pace slow federal investigation,” said Marquez Claxton, retired detective and founder of Black Law Enforcement Alliance. “Hopefully this new team of investigators will bring with them, along with their skills, a sense of urgency and a commitment to timely justice.”
“We make no predictions, but we’re glad that the Department of Justice is taking this investigation seriously,” said NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman. “It is way too long for the jury to still be out on an indictment. And, at the state level, we have a lot of work to do to make sure investigations into police killings are fair and transparent.”
As U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s DOJ looks into the case that New York feds seemed to fumble with—amid reports of internal fighting and working at a sluggish pace—comes the sentiment of Josmar Trujillo from the Coalition to End Broken Windows. “If the Justice Department thought that New York-area investigators, police and FBI agents were holding up charges against Det. Pantaleo—which are obvious to anyone who has seen the video—then it says a lot about law enforcement in New York,” said Trujillo. “It reminds us that law enforcement cannot be trusted to hold other members of law enforcement accountable. Though federal charges, and even a conviction, does not equate to ‘justice’ (let us remember that the killer of Anthony Baez, Frank Livoti, only served seven years of a federal conviction and is a free man today), it would be incredibly satisfying to see Pantaleo have to explain himself in a federal courtroom. Mayor Bill de Blasio should join him by answering questions over why the city continues to pay Pantaleo a hefty taxpayer-financed salary, including overtime(!).”
“The Justice Department is the gold standard of civil rights investigations and the mayor respects the attorney general’s decision,” Austin Finan, spokesman for de Blasio, told the AmNews.
The police department press office told the AmNews, “The officer is currently modified. He has not faced a departmental review. All further proceedings concerning this inquiry will continue to be stayed until the conclusion of the federal investigation.”
“There is an old legal axiom that ‘justice delayed is justice denied.’ The failure to swiftly move in the Eric Garner case and continued legal, administrative and political gymnastics only further gives us pause to finally reflect in the most serious terms the need to ‘Separate’ and turn our attention and strategic energies towards forms of self-determination for Black people in America, up to and including a ‘Separate National Government,’” said Omowale Clay of the December 12th Movement. “The failure of the Obama administration to see ‘Crimes Against Humanity’ everywhere around the world except in his own backyard, is not simply the failure of one Black man in ‘high places,’ but the stark reality that this government, controlled and owned by the rich, is not a path to freedom and justice.”