Cop Admits To Exaggerating Charges Against Eric Garner
While filling out arrest papers for a dying Eric Garner, NYPD Officer Justin Damico acknowledged that he inflated charges against Garner.
NEW YORK, NY – JULY 18: People attend a rally in Brooklyn to call for justice for Eric Garner one year after he died in an apparent police chokehold on July 18, 2015 in New York City. The rally of several hundred people was held in front of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Downtown Brooklyn. Members of Garner’s family joined Reverend Al Sharpton in demanding a federal investigation into his death. Garner, who was killed in a controversial choke-hold by a Staten Island police officer, had been approached by police for selling loose cigarettes. His death set off waves of protests around the city and country. Garner’s family has settled with the city for 5.9 million in a wrongful death suit. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
An officer who was involved in the struggle that ultimately led to Eric Garner’s death, following a confrontation over selling loose cigarettes five years ago, admitted to exaggerating charges against Garner in court on Tuesday.
According to the Associated Press, NYPD Officer Justin Damico acknowledged that after riding in an ambulance with Garner he filled out arrest papers that included a felony tax charge, which would have required prosecutors to prove that Garner had sold 10,000 untaxed cigarettes.
“You initiated this on your own, writing up the arrest of a dead man?” Suzanne O’Hare, a lawyer with the Civilian Complaint Review Board asked Damico.
Damico admitted that the felony charge was wrong because Garner only had five packs of Newports on him, which would have held less than 100 cigarettes.
The officer was testifying during the disciplinary trial of his colleague, Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who is accused of placing Garner in a banned chokehold as officers attempted to arrest him.
