AS EXPECTED, A GRAVE INJUSTICE HAS BEEN DONE TO NYPD OFFICER DANIEL PANTALEO

After Pantaleo firing: ‘The job has been dying and today, it’s dead’

By Rafael A. Mangual

New York Post
August 19, 2019

“Policing is dead,” a member of the NYPD told me Monday, after NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill decided to fire Officer Daniel Pantaleo over the death of Eric Garner. “Morale was already low. This was just the nail in the coffin.”

Another member of the department told me on the condition of anonymity, “It’s just disheartening.”

“It’s hard to say whether cops will back off,” he continued, “but I think the writing is definitely on the wall. Based on how things went in other cities [Chicago and Baltimore] I wouldn’t be surprised if we went in that same direction.”

The reactions echoed that of Police Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch, who told reporters, “The job has been dying; and today, the job is dead.” Lynch went on to assert Pantaleo’s dismissal was based “on the politics.”

As is often the case with these things, context and timing are all-important. The decision to fire Pantaleo will not be perceived in a vacuum, but rather through the lens of these politically charged times.

The decision came in the middle of a presidential-election cycle in which nearly all the candidates pursuing the Democratic Party’s nomination have openly demonized police as cogs in a machine of racial oppression and injustice.

Indeed, just a couple of weeks ago, protesters interrupted a prime-time debate to demand that candidate (and, when he has time, New York City Mayor) Bill de Blasio fire Pantaleo. The political implications of the decision were not lost on the officers I spoke to, one of whom referred to Pantaleo as “the victim of a presidential run.”

Unfortunately, Pantaleo’s firing also came in the wake of a series of escalating instances of NYPD officers being taunted, threatened and assaulted while in the field.

Not long after two videos of cops being doused with water went viral, another video showed cops being swarmed by a crowd in The Bronx. That melee resulted in one cop being hit with an open container of Chinese takeout; and in yet another incident reported by The Post over the weekend, officers in Brooklyn were hit with “ ‘air mail’ objects thrown down at cops from rooftops.”

Police morale shouldn’t dictate the outcome of investigations properly within the purview of a police department’s oversight mechanisms. But neither should such decisions be colored by the politics of our moment.

The pursuit of justice does not require sending police the message that their presence is not appreciated or wanted in Gotham’s high-crime neighborhoods. Will politicians stop doing precisely that?

EDITOR’S NOTE: How were the NYPD cops supposed to arrest a 395-pound Eric Garner who was resisting the officers?

An angry head of the police union, Patrick Lynch, said:“With this decision, Commissioner O’Neill has opened the door for politicians to dictate the outcome of every single NYPD disciplinary proceeding, without any regard for the facts of the case or police officers’ due process rights. He will wake up tomorrow to discover that the cop-haters are still not satisfied, but it will be too late. The damage is already done.”

In firing a good officer, NYPD Commissioner James P. O’Neill said he would like to think that Pantaleo would have waited for backup to arrive. Say what! There were four or five officers attempting to arrest Garner. Apparently O’Neill thinks the SWAT team should have made that arrest.

And uber-liberal Mayor Bill de Blasio, who called for the firing of Pantaleo, announced Tuesday that Sgt. Kizzy Adonis will face a disciplinary trial for failing to adequately supervise Officer Daniel Pantaleo during the Garner arrest.

It should also be noted that the officers did not set out to bust Garner. They responded to a complaint by business owners.

The political witch hunt against cops goes on all over the country.