How the NYPD Commissioner Grappled With the Eric Garner Decision

It is one he had been criticized for not making sooner, allowing the officer, Daniel Pantaleo, to remain on desk duty for five years as a federal investigation proceeded.

And yet the speech Monday instantly became a signature moment in O’Neill’s tenure, announcing the conclusion of a case that had been heavily scrutinized by all sides of the political spectrum — in neighborhoods that have long complained of police aggression, in City Hall and on the presidential campaign trail.

The commissioner, who has been praised by officers as a “cop’s cop,” clearly saw that this day could threaten the trust that had been placed in him, and his address showed how he had agonized over that potential breach. He recalled his early days in the department, and seemed at times to consider how that version of himself might have been disappointed with his decision to dismiss the 34-year-old officer.

“I served for nearly 34 years as a uniformed New York City cop before becoming police commissioner,” he said. “I can tell you that, had I been in Officer Pantaleo’s situation, I may have made similar mistakes.”

O’Neill’s decision came after a judge in a departmental trial recommended this month that Pantaleo be fired, saying she believed he had been “untruthful” in his explanation on what happened on July 17, 2014, after he had tackled Garner and pressed him to the pavement.

Garner’s pleas before his death — “I can’t breathe,” repeated 11 times — helped to galvanize the Black Lives Matter movement, which itself led to a counteroffensive from the police, who believed the criticism interfered with their ability to do their jobs.

O’Neill said he strove to make a decision “unaffected by public opinions demanding one outcome over another.” Anticipating blowback from all sides, he got personal, similar to what he’s done in the recent past, whether in eulogies for fallen officers or in his pointed apology for the police conduct that led to the Stonewall Riots.

He spoke of his visceral reaction to the video depicting the struggle between Garner and Pantaleo, even after watching it countless times.

“Every time I watched the video, I say to myself, as probably all of you do, to Mr. Garner: ‘Don’t do it. Comply,’” O’Neill said. “To Officer Pantaleo: ‘Don’t do it.’ I said that about the decisions made by both Officer Pantaleo and Mr. Garner.”

It was a speech steeped in context, one that sought to turn the discussion from hashtags on social media back to the original scene. O’Neill described in detail the undesirable conditions near that corner of Staten Island the day Garner died.

“Neighborhood residents purposely avoided the area in and directly around Tompkinsville Park,” he said. “Drug dealers worked the edges of the park, and across the street, selling narcotics. A handful of men regularly sold loose cigarettes made cheaper by the fact that New York state taxes had not been paid on them. A liquor store nearby sold alcohol to people who would drink that alcohol in the park — people who would sometimes use drugs, urinate and pass out on benches there.”

Pantaleo arrived at that park and found Garner selling loose cigarettes. O’Neill described the struggle between the two men after Garner refused to show identification. Pantaleo grabbed Garner’s wrist, and then Garner twisted away.

“What happened next is the matter we must address,” O’Neill said.

During a struggle that threatened to send both men crashing through a glass window, Pantaleo pressed his forearm against Garner’s neck. The chokehold, although not the preferred maneuver, was acceptable in the first brief moments of the struggle, O’Neill explained. But the officer maintained the hold after he had the opportunity to use a “less lethal alternative,” O’Neill said.

He said he himself might have done the same thing.

“And had I made those mistakes, I would have wished I had used the arrival of backup officers to give the situation more time to make the arrest,” he said. “And I would have wished that I had released my grip before it became a chokehold.”

In firing Pantaleo, he also praised the rest of the department.

“Being a police officer is one of the hardest jobs in the world,” he said. “That is not a statement to elicit sympathy from those we serve. It is a fact. Cops have to make choices, sometimes very quickly, every single day. Some are split-second, life-and-death choices.”

Many of those decisions face scrutiny later, “both fairly and unfairly,” O’Neill said.

He finished by calling for unity.

“We must move forward together as one city, determined to secure safety for all — safety for all New Yorkers and safety for every police officer working daily to protect all of us,” he said.

Even after the lengthy speech and questions from reporters, O’Neill took to social media to send some final thoughts.

“We recruit from the human race,” he said on Twitter. “We’re not perfect. But, the next time you’re walking down the street and you feel safe, thank the NYPD.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

How the NYPD Commissioner Grappled With the Eric Garner Decision

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