August 19, 2019, New York – In response to the announcement today that NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo has been fired for his use of an illegal chokehold that killed Eric Garner, the Center for Constitutional Rights issued the following statement:

This is a long overdue modicum of justice for Eric Garner’s family, five years after Mr. Garner’s unjust killing. Now the NYPD must hold the other officers involved accountable. Harm – including grave harm – by police officers is not merely a matter of individual bad actors. From a lack of transparency and accountability, to a culture of secrecy and ongoing biased policing, too many of the factors that led to Mr. Garner’s death and the injustice that followed remain. For Mr. Garner, his family, and all New Yorkers, we need wholesale cultural change within the police department and to move forward with reforms.

The Center for Constitutional Rights successfully sued the NYPD over the department’s racially discriminatory use of stop-and-frisk in the landmark class action suit Floyd v. City of New York, and continues to work with affected communities to implement reforms ordered by the court to reform the NYPD’s unconstitutional practices.