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New York police officer fired for deadly chokehold on Eric Garner

The death of Eric Garner sparked protests against the treatment of unarmed black men being killed by white officers - AFP
The death of Eric Garner sparked protests against the treatment of unarmed black men being killed by white officers - AFP

The New York Police Department on Monday fired the white officer who used a deadly chokehold on Eric Garner, an African American, while trying to arrest him in 2014 as Garner repeatedly said "I can't breathe."

The incident helped fuel the "Black Lives Matter" movement in response to multiple incidents of white police killing unarmed black men across the United States.

The officer, Daniel Pantaleo, was suspended earlier this month after a departmental judge ruled that the officer should be fired. He had previously been on desk duty since he was seen in widely viewed cellphone videos using a banned chokehold on Garner on a Staten Island sidewalk during an attempted arrest.

Police believed Garner was selling loose, untaxed cigarettes.

Commissioner James O'Neill said he struggled with the decision, which he made in recent days, after considering how Garner resisted arrest and, in his view, Mr Pantaleo acted properly up until the moment he applied the chokehold after the two men fell to the ground.

Former New York City Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo has been dismissed - Credit: AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez, File
Former New York City Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo has been dismissed Credit: AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez, File

Mr O'Neill repeatedly returned to the empathy he had for Mr Pantaleo, having himself been a uniformed officer for 34 years. "That could possibly be me," he said.

He also said he understood some police officers would be angry with him for not supporting one of their own.

"I've been a cop a long time, and if I was still a cop, I'd probably be mad at me, I would, for not looking out for us," he said.

But in the end, Mr O'Neill said, he could not overlook that Mr Pantaleo applied the chokehold despite having received sufficient police training that such a hold was barred, resulting in what he called a tragedy.

Garner's repeated dying cries of "I can't breathe," widely viewed on social media, became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement, which protests what its leaders call the disparate use of excessive force against black people across the United States.

His death, and the slow-moving investigations that followed, have generated some of the harshest criticisms of Mayor Bill de Blasio during his tenure and have spilled over into his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.