NY police eye disciplinary action on black man's death

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Four years after a black father of six died after being held in an illegal police chokehold, New York police will begin disciplinary action against two officers, an official confirmed Thursday.

Eric Garner's death in July 2014 was the first of a wave of high-profile, racially-charged incidents in the US in which officers have been accused of using unreasonable force or being too quick to fire at black suspects.

For years, the New York police held back from proceedings on the grounds that they had to wait until a federal civil rights investigation first ended.

Eric Garner's daughter Erica Garner takes part in candlelight vigil at the site where her father died in July, 2014 after being put in a chokehold, during a Martin Luther King Day service in the Staten Island borough of New York, January 19, 2015. /VCG Photo

But on Wednesday the Department of Justice conveyed that they had no objection to police moving forward, said an official.

Proceedings would begin "in the coming days," against Officer Daniel Pantaleo and Sergeant Kizzy Adonis, a police official said. It’s reported that the internal administrative trials would likely not begin before next year.

Garner, 43, was wrestled to the ground for allegedly selling illegal cigarettes on New York's Staten Island.

Graphic cell phone footage, which went viral, showed the heavily built Garner, who had asthma, complaining "I can't breathe" 11 times.

Demonstrators face a line of police officers during a demonstration against recent grand jury decisions not to indict police officers in the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, in Boston, Massachusetts, December 13, 2014. /VCG Photo

He lost consciousness at the scene and was pronounced dead after being taken to the hospital. Chokeholds are outlawed by New York police.

The medical examiner's office classified Garner's death as a homicide but a grand jury refused to prosecute the white officer who deployed the fatal chokehold.

Garner's death set off numerous protests in New York and elsewhere, magnified by the August 9, 2014 police shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

New York police subsequently began a pilot body-camera program, which they have since announced will be extended to all patrol officers and detectives by end-2018.

Source(s): AFP