Justice Department Investigating NYPD Cop Caught Killing

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JUSTICE DEPARTMENT INVESTIGATING NYPD COP CAUGHT KILLING ERIC GARNER ON VIDEO
by Andrew Emett
December 5, 2014

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The Justice Department has decided to conduct an investigation into the death of Eric Garner. Garner is one of at least nine unarmed black people killed by police in recent months. To date, no officers have been charged with the deaths.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced on Wednesday that the Justice Department will conduct an investigation into the death of Eric Garner after a Staten Island grand jury decided not to indict the NYPD officer responsible for using a banned chokehold resulting in Garner’s death. Garner is one of at least nine unarmed black people killed by police in recent months. To date, no officers have been charged with the deaths.

Around 4:45pm on July 17, Eric Garner and his friend, Ramsey Orta, were discussing where to eat dinner when a fight erupted nearby. After Garner assisted in breaking up the fight, NYPD Officer Justin Damico approached Garner and accused him of selling untaxed cigarettes. Orta pulled out his phone and began recording the incident on video.

Eric Garner Video 1
Eric Garner Video 2
Eric Garner Video 3
Eric Garner Video 4

As Garner argued with Damico, Officer Daniel Pantaleo approached Garner from behind and attempted to grab his wrists. After Garner held his arms up in a nonthreatening manner and told the officers not to touch him, Pantaleo immediately placed Garner in a chokehold even though the maneuver has been banned by the department since 1993.

Nonviolent and nonaggressive, Garner fell to the ground as multiple officers held him down. Garner continued to comply as Pantaleo released his chokehold and pushed Garner’s head against the pavement. While the officers subdued him, Garner weakly repeated, “I can’t breathe.”

Garner lost conscious and died of cardiac arrest. In a second video posted by Taisha Allen, officers stood over Garner’s motionless, handcuffed body for several minutes while waiting for paramedics to arrive. Instead of attempting to revive him, the cops dug through Garner’s pockets and ordered everyone to stand back. At the end of the second video, the paramedics arrived to transport Garner to the Richmond University Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.

“I felt like they treated him wrong even after the fact that they had him contained,” said Orta.

Pending the investigation, Pantaleo was stripped of his badge and gun, while Damico was placed on desk duty. Two paramedics and two emergency medical technicians who responded to the incident were suspended without pay.

According to city medical examiner spokeswoman Julie Bolcer, Garner was killed by neck compressions from the chokehold and during physical restraint by the police. She added that asthma, heart disease, and obesity had been contributing factors in the 43-year-old’s death. Garner left behind six children and two grandchildren.

On December 22, 1994, a year after the NYPD banned chokeholds, Officer Francis Livoti killed Anthony Baez with a chokehold in the Bronx. After a football accidentally hit his patrol car, Livoti arrested one of Baez’s brothers for disturbing the peace. As Baez argued with the officer, Livoti claims Baez resisted arrest by crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against a parked car. Livoti placed Baez in a chokehold and killed him. After being acquitted for criminally negligent homicide in a state trial, Livoti was eventually convicted in federal court of depriving Baez of his civil rights. Livoti was sentenced to seven and a half years in federal prison.

On Wednesday, the grand jury chose not to indict Pantaleo of any criminal charges surrounding Garner’s death. NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton announced that up to three other investigations could lead to a civil case or federal charges against Pantaleo. Garner’s family plans to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the NYPD. Since last year, Pantaleo has been involved in two civil rights lawsuits where plaintiffs alleged he engaged in brutal and racially motivated arrests.

“I couldn’t see how a grand jury could vote and say there was no probable cause,” said Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr. “What were they looking at? Were they looking at the same video the rest of the world was looking at?”

Garner joins at least seven other unarmed black men and one child killed by the police in recent months. Michael Brown, John Crawford III, Ezell Ford, Akai Gurley, Dontre Hamilton, Dante Parker, Rumain Brisbon, and Tamir Rice lost their lives in instances of excessive force, poor training, and miscommunication. None of the officers involved in their deaths have been charged with committing a crime.

In a press statement, Mayor Bill de Blasio wrote, “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – one of our nation’s most profound thinkers on these issues – taught us something very simple: ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ The problem of police-community relations and civil rights is not just an issue for people of color – or young people – or people who get stopped by police. This is a fundamental issue for every American who cares about justice.”

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Ramsey Orta, Man Who Filmed Eric Garner Death, Was Indicted By A Grand Jury, But Pantaleo Was Not
By Mark Hanrahan@markdhanrahanm.hanrahan@ibtimes.com
December 04 2014 7:17 AM


A screenshot from a video shared on social media shows Eric Garner being choked by an NYPD police officer. A grand jury declined to to indict the officer involved in the death, but a grand jury did indict the man who filmed the video over weapons charges stemming from a separate incident.

As protesters took to the streets of New York over the decision of a Staten Island grand jury not to indict a police officer who put Eric Garner in a chokehold shortly before he died, one person involved in the incident has not escaped indictment -- the man who filmed the incident.

Ramsey Orta, who filmed the incident that resulted in Garner's death, was indicted on weapons charges stemming from an Aug. 2 arrest, according to the Staten Island Advance. Police allege that Orta, 22, placed a .25-caliber handgun in the waistband of Alba Lekaj, 17, in an area near where Garner died, that is known for drug-related activity. Orta claims that the charges are a retaliatory measure by the police for his testimony in the Garner case.

“When they searched me, they didn’t find nothing on me,” Orta said to the Advance regarding his arrest. “And the same cop that searched me, he told me clearly himself, that karma’s a b***h, what goes around comes around,” Orta said.

“I had nothing to do with this. I would be stupid to walk around with a gun after me being in the spotlight,” he said later, according to Rawstory.

Orta pleaded not guilty according to Mediaite. At the time of his arrest, Orta reportedly told police: “You're just mad because I filmed your boy.”

A grand jury did not believe Orta's account, charging him with single felony counts of third-degree criminal weapon possession and criminal firearm possession, according to The Huffington Post.

By contrast, a Staten Island grand jury seemingly accepted the account of NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who was seen applying a chokehold to Garner in the video (see below), but whose lawyer claimed that “it was never his intention to harm anyone,” according to the New York Times.

The protests over Garner's death come on the heels of a spate of controversial killings of black men by U.S. police officers. The shooting of Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, resulted in a grand jury declining to indict the officer, and sparked protests across the U.S. and abroad.

After John Crawford III, a 22-year-old black man, was shot dead by Ohio police in a Walmart in August while carrying a BB gun that the store sold, a grand jury in the state also declined to pursue charges against officers, according to the Washington Post.

In addition, the shooting by Ohio police of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was reportedly brandishing a replica handgun when shot by a police officer whose capabilities had been previously questioned by his superiors, has further inflamed tensions in recent months.

It is incredibly rare for US grand juries not to return indictments, except in cases where the person facing charges is a police officer. In 2010, the most recent year for which data exist, U.S. attorneys prosecuted 162,000 federal cases, and grand juries declined to return an indictment in only 11 of them, according to FiveThirtyEight.

While less complete data on officer-involved shootings exist, FiveThirtyEight cites the example of the U.S. city of Dallas, where grand juries reviewed 81 shootings between 2008 and 2012 and returned just one indictment.

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Ramsey Orta, Man Who Filmed Eric Garner's Chokehold Death, Arrested On Weapons Charges
By Victoria Cavaliere
08/03/2014
Reuters

Aug 3 (Reuters) - A man who filmed a New York City police officer use a choke hold on a suspect who later died has been arrested on weapons charges, law enforcement officials said on Sunday.

Ramsey Orta, 22, and a 17-year-old female were spotted on Saturday outside a known drug location on Staten Island by narcotics officers who saw Orta put a handgun in his companion's waistband, the New York Police Department said.

Orta, who has a previous criminal conviction, faces two charges of criminal possession of a weapon.

At some point during his arrest, Orta told officers, "You're just mad because I filmed your boy," an NYPD spokeswoman said.

The comment was apparently in reference to the July 17 cellphone video shot by Orta during the arrest of Eric Garner, who was placed in a choke hold by a police officer while being detained for peddling illegal cigarettes.

Garner later died, and the New York City medical examiner ruled the his death a homicide.

Footage of the incident circulated widely on the Internet, triggering outrage and raising questions about police tactics and use of force

The choke hold is banned by the NYPD, which says it is investigating why the maneuver was used.

Police did not immediately comment on Orta's assertion that he was arrested as retribution for taking the video.

The New York City Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, the largest union representing NYPD officers, said in a statement that it was "criminals like Mr. Orta who carry illegal firearms who stand to benefit the most by demonizing the good work of police officers."

"Sadly, in the effort to keep neighborhoods like Tompkinsville safe, a tragedy occurred. But that doesn't change the fact that police officers routinely risk their lives for the benefit of the community," the statement said. (Reporting by Victoria Cavaliere; Editing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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Man who filmed Eric Garner in chokehold says grand jury was rigged
BY ERIK BADIA , TINA MOORE , CORKY SIEMASZKO
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Thursday, December 4, 2014

EXCLUSIVE: Ramsey Orta — who recorded the July 17 incident in which Officer Daniel Pantaleo put Eric Garner in a chokehold shortly before he died on his cellphone — told the Daily News the grand jury ‘wasn’t fair from the start,’ and claims his testimony only lasted 10 minutes. ‘I think they already had their minds made up,’ he said.


Ramsey Orta recorded the video showing Eric Garner in a chokehold. Orta said the grand jury was rigged.

The Staten Island man who took the cellphone video seen around the world of a cop killing Eric Garner with a chokehold said the grand jury was rigged.

“I think they already had their minds made up,” Ramsey Orta told the Daily News a day after the panel voted not to charge NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo with a crime.

“I feel like it wasn’t fair at all,” he said. “It wasn’t fair from the start.”

Orta said he arrived at the Staten Island courthouse on Sept. 1 prepared to be grilled for hours about what happened on July 17, when cops confronted Garner on a Tompkinsville street for selling unlicensed cigarettes.

Ten minutes later, Orta said, he was done.

“When I went to the grand jury to speak on my behalf, nobody in the grand jury was even paying attention to what I had to say,” Orta said. “People were on their phones, people were talking. I feel like they didn’t give (Garner) a fair grand jury.

“People was on their phones, people were having side conversations, like it was just a regular day to them,” he said of the jurors.

Orta, 22, said his appearance before the panel started two hours late because some of the jurors had not shown up.


Part of the video that shows Eric Garner in a chokehold at the hands of Officer Daniel Pantaleo on July 17.


Ramsey Orta, who filmed Eric Garner being put into a chokehold that led to his death, says the grand jury that decided not to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo was rigged

Then someone turned on the disturbing video of Pantaleo subduing Garner.

“They were asking me piece by piece — where I was, where I was standing at, if I was the one who shot the video,” he said of the prosecutors.

One of them “wasn’t even asking no questions about the police officer, he was asking all the questions toward Eric,” Orta said. “What was Eric doing there? Why was Eric there?

“Nothing pertaining to the cop choking him,” he said.

Only a few jurors asked any questions.

“Maybe three, that’s all,” he said. “The rest of them, they weren’t even worried about nothing.”

Those who did pose questions were also more focused on Garner than Pantaleo, he said.

“One grand juror asked me, ‘If you knew he was selling cigarettes, why didn’t you tell him the cops was there?’” he said.

Orta said he told the juror, “Well, miss, we know the cops is there every day, but the man has to make a living, some way, somehow.”

Another grand juror asked Orta if he had ever been arrested.

“I said, ‘Miss, what does my criminal history have to do with Eric?’” he recalled. “I said we shouldn’t be sitting here talking about me. We should be talking about Eric now. And we shouldn’t even be talking about Eric. We should be talking about the cop.”

But the question on the minds of prosecutors and the jurors, Orta said, was “Why was Eric standing there?”

“The whole thing was just about Eric — why was he selling cigarettes, did you know he was selling cigarettes? It was bulls---,” he said.

Orta said the exchange upset him. He complained and then was told by a man he thinks was an assistant district attorney “to watch how I talk.”

“I said, ‘First of all, you ain’t gonna tell me how to talk,’” he said. “These are my feelings and I feel like there should be no sugar-coating.”

Orta said prosecutors “brushed it off.”

“They actually cut my time short,” Orta said. “My lawyer told me I was supposed to be in there for at least a half an hour and I only stayed maybe 10 minutes.”


Garner died after the struggle with police. He allegedly yelled, ‘I can’t breathe’ during the incident.
ACQUIRED BY: TOMAS E. GASTON

A spokesman for District Attorney Daniel Donovan’s office refused to comment on Orta’s account.

Orta said he feels the Garner family was cheated and is glad the Justice Department will investigate the killing.

“The feds should pick it up,” he said. “Staten Island is too tied up. They all know each other. They won’t violate their own kind.”

Asked if he was surprised by the decision, Orta said, “I knew this was going to be the verdict.”

Orta said the jurors saw the video that everybody else saw and still wouldn’t charge Pantaleo with a crime.

“We shouldn’t have to fight for it. It’s plain. It’s right there,” he said.


Esaw Garner, the widow of Eric Garner, is seen with her son Emery, 15, at their home in Manhattan on Wednesday.


Orta says his grand jury testimony only lasted 10 minutes. "I think they already had their minds made up."

Orta’s remarks were echoed by 37-year-old Rodney Lee, a manager of the beauty supply store in front of which Garner was killed. He said he testified for “about 10 minutes” on Oct. 22.

“I told them what I saw and that was it,” Lee said. “They didn’t ask me how I feel about it, what it looked like, what I thought.”

Lee said the jurors showed little respect for some of the witnesses.

“They all treated us like we were dumb, like we didn’t know nothing ...I mean, what was the point of us even being there if they weren’t going to listen to us?”

Meanwhile, Eric Garner’s son said the grand jury failed.

“For six months, I had faith that they would indict the officer,” Eric Snipes, 19, told The News on Thursday. “I think the grand jury didn’t come up with the right decision. I need to talk to them. They need to explain to me why they didn’t indict the officer.”

Snipes is still hopeful.

“I want the federal government to prosecute him,” he said.