NYPD union head Ed Mullins decried the $5.9 million settlement over Eric Garner’s death in the New York Daily Post Tuesday, declaring Garner’s family did not deserve the “obscene” amount of money and insisting police officers were only minimally responsible for his death.
Mullins asserted that Garner’s family was being rewarded for criminal behavior, as Garner was killed while being harassed over selling cigarettes illegally. “Although Mr. Garner did not provide his family with an abundance of wealth, it was clear from the outset that the Mayor’ s Office would: Mr. Garner’s family should not be rewarded simply because he repeatedly chose to break the law and resist arrest,” Mullins wrote. “The responsibility of the City in paying damages, if any, to Mr. Garner’s family should be proportionate to its responsibility for Mr. Garner’s death, which was at best, minimal.”
Garner’s autopsy suggests otherwise; the city medical examiner ruled Garner’s death a homicide caused by the illegal police chokehold used by Daniel Pantaleo.
The NYPD union turned its back on Mayor Bill De Blasio (D-NY) at a slain officer’s funeral over the mayor’s perceived sympathy with #BlackLivesMatter protesters last year. The union also organized a work slowdown in response to the protests, refusing to arrest people over petty crimes and low-level offenses like traffic tickets. Arrests plummeted, but crime was not impacted, leading some to suggest the slowdown backfired on the officers.