An NYPD sergeant on duty when Eric Garner died loses 20 vacation days for supervisory failures, a source says

A New York Police Department sergeant who was on duty at the scene of Eric Garner’s death has pleaded guilty to an administrative charge that she failed to properly supervise officers, a law enforcement source told CNN.

Sgt. Kizzy Adonis will lose 20 vacation days, according to the source, for her actions related to the 2014 incident in which another officer was found to have placed Garner in a banned choke hold moments before he died.

“The Police Commissioner evaluated Sergeant Adonis’ supervision of officers under her command that day, and found that it was lacking in certain areas,” NYPD Assistant Commissioner Devora Kaye told CNN on Wednesday in a statement.

“That analysis concluded by noting that nothing about her actions on that day either caused the use of the banned chokehold, or the delayed arrival of medical attention for Mr. Garner,” Kaye said.

Attorneys for Adonis did not immediately return requests for comment. Had she not pleaded guilty, Adonis would have faced a departmental trial.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, a civil rights leader who has advocated with the Garner family, called the decision to dock Adonis’ vacation time “too little, too late.”

“If the penalty for not doing your job is that you can keep doing your job, it is an injustice to the family of Eric Garner and the residents of New York City,” Sharpton said in a statement.

“We will continue to press for justice on all avenues, including with congressional hearings in the fall,” he added.

Garner, a 43-year-old father of six, died while police tried to arrest him for allegedly selling loose cigarettes on Staten Island. During that arrest, then-Officer Daniel Pantaleo placed Garner in a banned choke hold, wrapping his arm around Garner’s neck and pulling him to the ground, an NYPD administrative judge found.

In video of the arrest, Garner can be heard telling Pantaleo, “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.” The phrase became a mantra for the Black Lives Matter movement and a nationwide push for greater accountability for the use of force by law enforcement authorities.

Pantaleo was fired last week following a departmental trial.