FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 2, 2019
CONTACT: Peter Giunta, 347.621.8031
The following is a statement from Assemblymember Michael Reilly (R-South Shore) on NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Trials’ recommendation to terminate Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo:
“I am deeply troubled by Deputy Commissioner Maldonado’s recommendation to terminate Daniel Pantaleo from the New York City Police Department. This was not an impartial department proceeding and the process will forever raise questions about the integrity of the department’s trial room. This decision was not guided by facts, but by political bias from City Hall instead.
Officer Pantaleo had been cleared in two separate and unbiased criminal investigations into this matter. Both, one of which involved a grand jury, determined that the facts and evidence did not support bringing criminal charges against Officer Pantaleo. However, for Mayor de Blasio and others at City Hall, that was not good enough because it didn’t fit the inflammatory and anti-police narrative they’ve worked so hard to craft. And so the biased rhetoric continued and it became clear that Mayor de Blasio and others at City Hall have tipped the scale of the department’s Administrative Trials.
This recommendation is the result of a mob-like movement that has been encouraged and nurtured by Mayor de Blasio who has been absent at the wheel while he gallivants the country in an effort to poll higher than 1% in his failing campaign for the presidency. I have said several times that Bill de Blasio was elected to lead a city, not a movement.
To those who argue that Officer Pantaleo violated the department’s Patrol Guide, I say that the Patrol Guide is only a guide, not law. It does not always conform to the everyday scenarios that a Police Officer may encounter on the street. Think about the following for example:
You are standing on the sidewalk and an individual in a vehicle is driving straight at you with the intent of hitting you. Across the street is a Police Officer and chances are that you would want the officer to shoot at the vehicle and stop to save your life.
Well, that Police Officer would be violating the Patrol Guide, which prohibits officers from shooting at a moving vehicle if no other force besides the vehicle is being used; however, that officer would not be breaking the law.
I urge Commissioner O’Neill to consider all the facts based on his experiences at the department, starting as a patrol officer and spanning all the supervisory ranks he served in. I understand that this is a very difficult position for Commissioner O’Neill to be in, especially since he has the daunting task of balancing political rhetoric and knowing the reality of the burden officers face each day.”
Mike Reilly is a former Lieutenant with the New York City Police Department and was elected to represent the South Shore of Staten Island in the New York State Assembly in November 2018.
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