An NYPD supervisor alerted to the likely death of Eric Garner responded to a subordinate with a text message reading, “Not a big deal, we were effecting a lawful arrest.”
The exchange between Lt. Christopher Bannon and Sgt. Dhanan Saminath shortly after Garner was rushed to Richmond University Medical Center without a pulse was recounted Thursday at the departmental trial for Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who is accused of using a banned chokehold maneuver on Garner as he and other officers were trying to arrest him for selling loose cigarettes on Bay St. in Staten Island nearly five years ago.
In video obtained by the Daily News, Garner insisted he had just broken up a fight and was not breaking any laws. Garner argued with the cops before Pantaleo grabbed Garner from behind and brought him to the ground. The city medical examiner ruled Garner died from the chokehold and chest compression, and said Garner’s weight, asthma and cardiovascular disease were contributing factors.
Called as a defense witness, Bannon recounted how he received text messages from Saminath after Garner was taken down and took his last gasps for air, screaming “I can’t breathe” 11 times — a cry for help that was captured on the disturbing footage and helped fuel the nationwide Black Lives Matter movement.
Bannon’s “Not a big deal” comment drew gasps and protests from the audience, which had to be admonished by the NYPD judge, Rosemarie Maldonado.
Bannon said the texts from Saminath started coming in while he was in a meeting.
“Danny and Justin went to collar Eric Garner and he resisted," Saminath wrote. “When they took him down Eric went into cardiac arrest. He’s unconscious. Might be DOA.”
“For the smokes?” Bannon asked.
“Yeah,” Saminath fired back. “They observed him selling ... Danny tried to grab him, they both went down. They called the [ambulance] ASAP. He’s most likely DOA. He has no pulse.”
Bannon then sent his “Not a big deal" text, but claimed on the stand that he had written it to comfort Pantaleo.
“My reasoning behind that text message, not to be malicious, it’s to make sure the officer knew was put in a bad situation … to try to bring him down to a level where you put him at ease," Bannon said under cross-examination. "That was my intention.”
“Would you agree that Garner was put in a bad situation?” asked Suzanne O’Hare, a prosecutor for the Civilian Complaint Review Board.
“I don’t know how to answer that," Bannon said. “I don’t know if he was or wasn’t.
“It’s a big deal if somebody dies during anything,” he later added.
Pantaleo’s attorney, Stu London, opened the defense’s case Thursday by calling Bannon to the stand to paint Bay St. in Tompkinsville as a hotbed of quality-of-life crimes in the months before Garner’s death. The NYPD, Bannon said, had been focused on the issue since at least March 2014, with Garner twice busted for selling “loosies” on the street.
Bannon said that on July 17, 2014, the day of Garner’s death, he drove by Bay St., saw a bunch of men congregating and ordered up a police response to see what was going on. That turned out to be Pantaleo and Officer Justin D’Amico.
Outside One Police Plaza, where the trial is being held, Police Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch noted that Pantaleo was following orders that day from the brass in the building right behind him — but that it’s Pantaleo who could lose his job.
“There should be responsibility on behalf of the Police Department to say, ‘We asked for this because the community asked us,'" Lynch said, as he was mocked and ridiculed by protesters.
Garner’s mother Gwen Carr, who for the first time stayed in the courtroom while the video of her son was played — though she had earplugs on and tried to look away — focused her anger on Bannon’s text.
“If it was one of your loved ones or one of his loved ones who was on the ground dead and someone came up to you and said, ‘No big deal,’ how would you feel about it”? Carr asked. "I think this officer should be off the force.
“He shouldn’t be in charge of anybody.”
But Lou Turco, head of the Lieutenants Benevolent Association, said Bannon was just trying “to alleviate the immense pressure often experienced by an officer after a tragic event and to dissuade an officer from spiraling into an emotionally distressed state.”
Carr also said she was stunned to hear that despite Garner’s death police drew up arrest paperwork because he did have untaxed cigarettes in his possession. It wasn’t immediately clear if the arrest was voided at the precinct, or if it was filed and later dismissed.
“That completely blew me away,” she said. “How do you arrest a dead man? That means it’s just paperwork and business as usual.”
Testimony in the trial resumes Tuesday.