NEW YORK — Mayor Bill de Blasio and active and retired NYPD commissioners won’t be compelled to testify at a judicial inquiry into city officials’ neglect of duty surrounding Eric Garner’s death, a Manhattan judge said Friday.
Lawyers for Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, and her allies had asked Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Erika Edwards to reconsider her earlier ruling against having city leaders testify.
Carr and her supporters say city leaders’ testimony is compelled in light of new revelations that emerged during testimony from the NYPD’s internal affairs chief Joseph Reznick, who said disciplinary decisions in the Garner case were made by officials higher up in the NYPD.
But Edwards said Reznick’s input did not change her mind.
“To me, there’s nothing new that came out of the testimony and nothing new in the information that would lead me to believe that their testimony would be appropriate under the circumstances,” said Edwards.
“I’m denying the motion.”
Reznick is the most senior NYPD officials to have testified in the inquest, which started Monday.
The Internal Affairs Bureau chief said his unit investigated ex-Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who fatally choked Garner, and a sergeant for failure to supervise at the scene, Kizzy Adonis, and then referred those charges to the NYPD's Department Advocate’s Office office for prosecution.
The Department Advocate’s Office, then headed by former Deputy Commissioner Kevin Richardson, declined to prosecute Pantaleo or Adonis.
Edwards also said she would not make affidavits filed Wednesday by Maya Wiley, the mayor’s former counsel and chairwoman of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, and Donovan Richards, the Queens borough president and former Public Safety chair, part of the record.
In the affidavits, Wiley and Richards said they had firsthand knowledge the NYPD chain-of-command structures. Wiley said it was customary for the mayor to be briefed and consulted periodically by NYPD brass “throughout the process” of investigating Garner’s death.
Edwards ruled out top officials’ testimony after lawyers entered footage of Garner appearing to be dead on the sidewalk immediately after Pantaleo had put him in a fatal chokehold.
The footage, taken before EMS workers arrived, has never been publicly shown, according to Gideon Oliver, one of Carr’s lawyers.
Officer William Meems said when he arrived and found Garner nonresponsive, he didn’t immediately check his airway or pulse rate because he thought Garner might have been feigning illness.
The footage shows Meems rolling Garner onto his back. Garner’s eyes are open but glazed over.
Edwards will issue no determination at the hearing’s conclusion. Her job is to write a report outlining the testimony in the case and file it with the New York County Clerk.
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