A Manhattan appeals panel grilled lawyers for the city and Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo Thursday about why disciplinary records for the cop, who put Eric Garner in a fatal chokehold, should not be released.
“Is there a point at which they should be public?” asked Judge Rolando Acosta, adding that disciplinary records for judges are public.
“So a police officer is different than judges?” Acosta asked.
“Under the state statute, yes,” answered city lawyer Aaron Bloom. A 1976 law exempts the personnel files of police officers from public disclosure to prevent embarrassment, harassment or impeachment.
“But the video does that by itself, right?” Acosta said, referring to the now-famous recording of the July 2014 encounter.
The question elicited laughter from the crowd, which included Garner’s mother Gwen Carr.
Pantaleo’s attorney Mitchell Garber said The Legal Aid society sued for the records so they could put them in a police conduct database, which is “precisely the type of abusive exploitation” the exemption was designed to prevent.
The five-judge panel from the Appellate Division First Department will rule on the case in the coming weeks.
Garner died following the encounter with cops on Staten Island. Pantaleo was not criminally charged, but the federal government is investigating the incident.