‘Garner’ Justice: Long Wait, No End in Sight

Three days before the third anniversary Dec. 3 of a Staten Island grand jury’s decision not to indict Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of Eric Garner, Mayor de Blasio was asked whether he’d grown impatient enough with a Justice Department probe of the case to talk with Police Commissioner James O’Neill about scheduling an internal trial.

His Police Commissioner at the time of the incident, Bill Bratton, said that he had been asked by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn to defer NYPD action until after Federal prosecutors decided whether to file civil-rights charges against Mr. Pantaleo for the July 2014 confrontation in which he yanked Mr. Garner—who was being arrested for allegedly selling loose cigarettes—to the ground with what appeared to be an NYPD-banned chokehold. As the cop mushed his face into the pavement, Mr. Garner, who had a long rap sheet as a decidedly petty criminal, moaned numerous times, “I can’t breathe” in what became a rallying cry for those protesting his subsequent death.