Federal prosecutors still haven't made decision as to whether to file charges in the police chokehold death of Eric Garner in 2014, Department of Justice officials said Friday.
Career prosecutors in the civil rights and criminal division of the Justice department remain divided over whether a criminal prosecution should go forward -- whether it is appropriate and winnable, officials familiar with the case say.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has heard from all sides but hasn't made a decision as to whether to charge the officer who killed Garner.
State prosecutors in New York have already declined to prosecute Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who remains on modified duty as the NYPD awaits Department of Justice's review before moving forward with its own disciplinary hearing.
The fits and starts of the Garner investigation stands out from other federal civil rights investigations into police shootings of black men.
The Justice Department probe of the death Alton Sterling, who was shot by Baton Rouge police while pinned to the ground in July 2016, was wrapped up in 10 months when prosecutors concluded there wasn't enough evidence to bring charges.
The department's probe of the 2014 police shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, ended the same way in March 2015.
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It took less than a year for a federal indictment of an officer who pleaded guilty in the 2015 slaying of Walter Scott in South Carolina.
There's no time limit for civil rights investigations, but the length of the Garner inquiry is unusual, Jonathan Smith, a former Justice Department prosecutor, said last year. Internal politics or concerns for optics could be stalling an announcement, he added.
"It's not like there's a lot of (unknown) facts in this case. It was on videotape," he said. "What can be known is going to be known at this point."
The widely watched video from July 17, 2014, shows Garner, who had been stopped by officers for selling untaxed cigarettes, telling the officers to leave him alone and refusing to be handcuffed. Pantaleo responds by putting Garner in an apparent chokehold — banned under New York Police Department policy — as he was taken to the ground.
The heavyset Garner, who had asthma, is heard gasping, "I can't breathe" before lapsing into unconsciousness. He later was pronounced dead at a hospital.
The medical examiner ruled Garner's death a homicide caused in part by the chokehold. But police union officials and Pantaleo's lawyer have argued that the officer used a takedown move taught by the police department, not a chokehold, and that Garner's poor health was the main reason he died.
