NEW YORK: The New York City Police Department (NYPD) has fired the white police officer who used a fatal chokehold in the 2014 death of Eric Garner, a black man, said media reports said.
Police commissioner James O’Neill announced Monday that he fired officer Daniel Pantaleo based on a recent recommendation of a department disciplinary judge.
Pantaleo was suspended earlier this month after the recommendation. He had previously been on desk duty since he was seen in widely viewed mobile phone videos using a banned chokehold on Garner on a Staten Island pavement during an attempted arrest.
Garner’s dying words of “I can’t breathe” were recorded on the videos and became a flash point in a national debate over race and police use of force.
The recordings led to years of protests and calls by black activists, their supporters and liberal politicians for Pantaleo to lose his job. City officials had long insisted, though, they couldn’t take action until criminal investigations were complete.
(Agencies)
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