Editorial: Sgt. Failed to Assert Herself

Contrary to what Sergeants’ Benevolent Association President Ed Mullins said last week, there was nothing about the serving of disciplinary charges against Sgt. Kizzy Adonis for failure to supervise at the scene of Eric Garner’s fatal encounter with Staten Island cops that would qualify as “political pandering” by Police Commissioner Bill Bratton.

When a grand jury opted not to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo 13 months ago for applying what appeared to be a department-banned chokehold, a former NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Trials, Arnold Kriss, expressed surprise that then-Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan had granted immunity from prosecution to the other cops at the scene, given a damning cell-phone video of the incident. One of his observations about the lack of action on the part of all of them was, “Where was the Sergeant?”