The haunting last words of Eric Garner, “I can’t breathe,” became one of the unofficial slogans of the Black Lives Matter movement and the larger movement against police brutality. Garner died on July 14, 2014, when NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo fatally choked him after an encounter over the sale of loose cigarettes.
According to documents obtained by ThinkProgress, it turns out that Pantaleo has a history of complaints against him and recommended disciplinary action dating back years before he and Garner ever crossed paths. In fact, Pantaleo has a total of 7 disciplinary complaints and 14 individual allegations. Though four of the allegations were substantiated by the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), the only punishment Pantaleo seems to have received was that he was docked a total of two vacation days—in total.
The documents show four of the allegations were substantiated by the CCRB, which recommended disciplinary action against Pantaleo years before he killed Garner. According to the records, the agency had sufficient evidence of an abusive vehicle stop and search by Pantaleo in 2011, which resulted in a two-part complaint. The agency also substantiated allegations about an abusive stop and frisk in 2012, which resulted in another two-part complaint that was reported by DNAinfo in April 2016.
According to the opinion of experts interviewed by ThinkProgress and our own review of CCRB data, this, along with the sheer number of cases, indicates a chronic history of complaints against Pantaleo and would make his disciplinary history with the CCRB among the worst on the force.
That’s right. A cop with a disciplinary history among the worst on the force was not only allowed to continue his job without repercussions, he later killed someone but managed to still maintain his employment with the police force.
And that’s not all. Apparently, Pantaleo’s repertoire was not limited to stop and frisk. The documents show that he was alleged to have used physical abuse and refused to seek medical treatment for someone who needed assistance.
The documents also show allegations that Pantaleo refused to seek medical treatment for someone in 2009, hit someone against an inanimate object in 2011, made abusive vehicular stops and searches on two separate occasions in 2012, and used physical force during another incident in 2013.
What’s even more damning here is that the CCRB is not exactly known for siding against cops. It is very rare for the CCRB to substantiate claims at all—in fact, in 2011, the first year that the agency recommended charges against Pantaleo, only 5 percent of claims were substantiated. And legal experts say that by all accounts the number of complaints against him should have meant that someone should have paid attention.
“Regardless of the outcome, if you get three complaints in a year, you’re supposed to be on performance monitoring,” Moore said. “He got three in the course of two months in 2012.” [...]
Even a conservative reading of the documents indicates Pantaleo had among the worst CCRB disciplinary records on the force two years before his encounter with Garner. Yet the NYPD allowed him to stay on the streets.
When compared with publicly available data posted on the CCRB’s website, the records show that Pantaleo was subject to far more disciplinary allegations and substantiated complaints than the majority of his 36,000 fellow NYPD officers.
No transparency (the CCRB no longer discloses officer’s complaint histories) and accountability means that cops with violent histories not only go undisciplined but are allowed to kill without consequence. And it looks like they are well paid for it too. As of last year, Pantaleo received a raise and currently makes $119,996 a year.