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N.Y. cop not indicted in choke-hold death

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A grand jury in New York on Wednesday decided not to indict White police officer Daniel Pantaleo in the July choke-hold death of Eric Garner, an unarmed Black man, according to two law enforcement officials.

During the fatal encounter July 17,Garner raised both hands in the air and told the officers not to touch him. Seconds later, a video shows an officer behind Garner grab him in a choke hold and pull him to the sidewalk, rolling him onto his stomach.

“I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” Garner said repeatedly, his cries muffled into the pavement.

The grand jury was made up of 14 White and nine non-White members.

The cause of Garner’s death was “compression of neck (choke hold), compression of chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police,” the medical examiner’s office has said. The death was ruled a homicide.

The New York City Police Department prohibits choke holds.

Garner, 43, was pronounced dead that day. Police had suspected Garner of selling cigarettes illegally.

The death led to demonstrations around the city and came weeks before the racially charged police shooting of unarmed teen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

Pantaleo, according to a statement from his union, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, said: “I became a police officer to help people and to protect those who can’t protect themselves. It is never my intention to harm anyone and I feel very bad about the death of Mr. Garner. My family and I include him and his family in our prayers, and I hope that they will accept my personal condolences for their loss.”

Staten Island Borough President James Oddo said: “Some folks here on Staten Island—our island, our home—will agree with the results, and many will not. In this matter, the Garner family, the NYPD and the office of the borough president speak with one voice when we say that disagreeing with the conclusion of the grand jury is your absolute right, and so is peacefully protesting the result and advocating for change.”

On the streets of Staten Island, where Garner lived and died, people started gathering at the spot where officers attempted to arrest him and near the prosecutor’s officer.

“This is ridiculous,” one man said. “This is outrageous.”

Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch said “there are no winners” from the grand jury decision.

“There was a loss of life that both a family and a police officer will always have to live with,” he said.

“It is clear that the officer’s intention was to do nothing more than take Mr. Garner into custody as instructed and that he used the take-down technique that he learned in the academy when Mr. Garner refused,” Lynch added. “No police officer starts a shift intending to take another human being’s life, and we are all saddened by this tragedy.”

Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, and his widow, Esaw Garner, were scheduled to speak to the press Wednesday night.

The grand jury’s decision came on the same day that the New York Police Department, the nation’s largest, announced plans to start having its officers wear body cameras in an attempt to bolster public confidence.

“When something happens, to have a video record of it, from the police officers’ perspective, is going to help in many, many ways,” Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters. “And God forbid, when something goes wrong, we are going to have a clearer understanding of what happened.”

Dominique Debucquoy-Dodley and Shimon Prokupecz contributed to this story.

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