NYPD officer says he was 350 feet ‘or more’ away when he first saw Eric Garner sell loose cigarette in incident that led to Garner’s death
A police officer who spearheaded cops’ decision to approach Eric Garner on charges of selling loose cigarettes said Wednesday he was more than a football field’s distance from the scene when he thought he saw Garner make a sale.
“It could have been approximately around 350 (feet), or more,” said Officer Justin D’Amico, 32.
“I observed the hand-off of a cigarette for what appeared to be money, so to speak,” the officer said.
D’Amico spoke at a judicial inquiry set up to scrutinize the circumstances of Garner’s death.
He described how far away he was when he saw the Staten Island father of five sell a loosie to someone on Bay St. near Victory Blvd. under questioning by lawyer Gideon Oliver.
After D’Amico described the first cigarette sale he observed, Oliver pressed him to describe the second sale he witnessed as he drove past 202 Bay St. in Tompkinsville in an unmarked car with Daniel Pantaleo, the ex-officer who choked Garner to death.
“The second sale occurred, yeah, before, before we went around the block,” D’Amico said.
Oliver then asked why D’Amico never said anything about a second sale at Pantaleo’s 2019 NYPD disciplinary trial.
“I was — I was asked direct questions and never had a chance to even explain myself about the second sale because all the questions were direct, and I gave direct answers,” D’Amico responded.
At a press conference, Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, said she didn’t believe a word of D’Amico’s testimony.
“I am sick and tired of listening to the lies by D’Amico. For three days, he’s been lying, he’s been contradicting himself,” said Carr.
“These officers should not be on the force. They should have been fired immediately.”
D’Amico gave limited testimony at Pantaleo’s police department disciplinary trial. The deputy commissioner for NYPD disciplinary trials, Rosemarie Maldonado, described D’Amico’s testimony and that of other officers present at the scene as “unhelpful or unreliable” in her recommendation the NYPD fire Pantaleo.
In earlier testimony, D’Amico said he rode in the ambulance with Garner to Richmond University Medical Center, where medics declared the one-time Parks Department horticulturist deceased.
From there, the officer said, he went to fill out an arrest report for the dead man, falsely accusing Garner of having 10,000 untaxed cigarettes on his person rather than the 95 D’Amico was filmed emptying from the dying man’s pockets at the scene.
The officer testified he didn’t hear Garner yell out, “I can’t breathe!” once in eleven times.
Shown the footage of Garner’s fatal arrest on Wednesday, D’Amico again changed his tune.
“Did you hear, when we just played the video, Mr. Garner saying, ‘I can’t breathe’?” asked Oliver.
“Today, yes. I did hear him say that,” D’Amico replied.
The judicial inquiry brought by Carr and police reform advocates is allowed under a rarely-cited section of the city charter. Judge Edwards will issue no legal ruling at its conclusion.
