Sergeant Will Not Face NYPD Trial In Eric Garner Case

NEW YORK — An NYPD sergeant who was at the scene where Eric Garner was put in a chokehold five years ago will not face an administrative trial for her role in his death.

Sgt. Kizzy Adonis has settled her disciplinary case with the NYPD, meaning she will not go through a trial like the one Officer Daniel Pantaleo faced before he was fired this week, the Police Department said Wednesday.

A police source said Adonis will lose 20 vacation days for her role in the infamous July 2014 incident on Staten Island that led to Garner's death, which helped spark the nationwide Black Lives Matter movement.

"This disciplinary case was adjudicated," NYPD Assistant Commissioner Devora Kaye said in a statement.

Police Commissioner James O'Neill examined Adonis's supervision of cops under her command the day Garner died and found it lacking in some areas, the NYPD said. Her actions did not cause Garner to be put in the banned chokehold or delay medical attention from getting to him, according to the department.

The Police Department noted that Adonis was a new sergeant with no prior disciplinary history who had been assigned to the Staten Island precinct just eight days before Garner's death.

The announcement came two days after O'Neill fired Pantaleo following a roughly three-week disciplinary trial before Deputy Commissioner Rosemarie Maldonado, who ruled that the 13-year cop acted recklessly by putting Garner in the chokehold that led to his death.

Adonis was a supervising officer at the scene on Bay Street where Pantaleo and other cops tried to arrest Garner for allegedly selling loose cigarettes on July 17, 2014. The NYPD started disciplinary proceedings against Adonis and Pantaleo last July after waiting nearly four years for the U.S. Department of Justice to wrap up its investigation of Garner's death.

Garner's mother, Gwen Carr, and police-reform advocates have demanded the firings of four other cops involved in the incident. None of them are facing disciplinary charges.

Carr said she was "outraged and disgusted" — but not surprised — at the outcome of Adonis's case.

"By refusing to schedule a disciplinary trial for Adonis, de Blasio and the NYPD are actively participating in an ongoing cover-up because they don't want the public to know how deep, how wide and how high the wrongdoing in this case went," Carr said in a statement. "Their actions are disgraceful but I am not going to back down."

The Sergeants Benevolent Association, the police union that represents Adonis, said it will hold a press conference on the case Thursday. Union President Ed Mullins has said Adonis was "scapegoated."

"We will address what really occurred in this extremely sensitive matter," Mullins said in a statement Wednesday.