Final Punishment in Eric Garner Case: Sergeant Loses Vacation Time

The final police disciplinary case to arise from the death of Eric Garner was brought to a close Wednesday when the sergeant who had arrived on the scene as officers pressed Mr. Garner to the ground made a deal to forfeit 20 vacation days and keep her job.

The agreement to let the sergeant, Kizzy Adonis, 42, avoid a public tribunal came two days after the New York City police commissioner fired Officer Daniel Pantaleo for using a banned chokehold on Mr. Garner that led to the unarmed man’s death in 2014.

The acceptance of the plea from Sergeant Adonis, who had been charged with multiple counts of “failure to supervise,” meant that after five years and two criminal investigations, only two of the dozen or so officers involved in the arrest and its aftermath have faced a penalty for Mr. Garner’s death.

Sergeant Adonis was the only other officer charged with breaking Police Department rules during Mr. Garner’s arrest, even though police officials, prosecutors and Mr. Garner’s family have raised questions about the conduct of several others, including officers who testified in Officer Pantaleo’s defense at his trial in May.

Mr. Garner was one of several unarmed black men who died in encounters with white police officers in 2014, igniting nationwide protests and fueling the Black Lives Matter movement.

Sergeant Adonis pleaded guilty to the disciplinary charges this week, after the police commissioner found fault with her handling of the encounter, according to an official who requested anonymity to discuss the case because police disciplinary matters are confidential.

The official did not specify in what way Commissioner James P. O’Neill was critical of Sergeant Adonis, who was seen in video of the encounter standing in the background. He did not blame her for Officer Pantaleo’s use of the chokehold, nor for the delay in getting medical attention to aid Mr. Garner, who was 43, the official said.

Sergeant Adonis arrived after Officer Pantaleo had tackled Mr. Garner from behind and while he and other officers were pressing Mr. Garner down on the pavement. The officers had arrested him because they suspected he was selling loose cigarettes. A storeowner overheard her telling the officers, “Let up, you got him already.”

Mr. Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, said that she was “outraged and disgusted” to learn of Sergeant Adonis’s plea deal and accused Mayor Bill de Blasio and the Police Department of “actively participating in an ongoing cover-up.”

“They don’t want the public to know how deep, how wide and how high the wrongdoing in this case went,” she said. “Their actions are disgraceful, but I am not going to back down. I will continue to fight.”

Sergeant Adonis, a 17-year-veteran, could not be reached for comment. Her labor union, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, scheduled a news conference on Thursday.

“We will address what really occurred in this extremely sensitive matter,” said Edward D. Mullins, the union president, who has said the decision to charge her was politically motivated.

Mr. Mullins has said that Sergeant Adonis did not stand idly by after she heard Mr. Garner say he could not breathe. Instead, he said, she followed department protocol and consulted with another officer at the scene, a trained paramedic.

Sergeant Adonis was supposed to be in a meeting but responded to the scene on her own initiative, Mr. Mullins has said. Other supervisors — the duty captain, the borough commander and the zone commander — were never reprimanded.

Sergeant Adonis had been promoted to sergeant in June 2014 and was assigned to the 120th Precinct in Staten Island on July 9, eight days before the encounter. Until then, her record had been unblemished and she had received positive evaluations, Mr. Mullins and police officials have said.

Some elected officials and activists — even some who have called for her to be fired —have questioned why Sergeant Adonis, who is African-American, was the only person other than Officer Pantaleo to face departmental charges.

“For the only person to be charged off of this besides Pantaleo to be a person of color certainly raises eyebrows,” said Donovan J. Richards, the chairman of the City Council’s public safety committee.

When asked on Monday whether he would take action against other officers, Commissioner O’Neill said that the Internal Affairs Bureau had determined that none of them had taken actions that warranted punishment. Mr. O’Neill did not critique the other officers’ conduct or their testimony at Mr. Pantaleo’s departmental trial in May.

The administrative judge who recommended that Officer Pantaleo be fired said the testimony given by three other officers present at the arrest — Craig Furlani, William Meems, and Justin Damico — was “unhelpful or unreliable.”

Officer Damico, Officer Pantaleo’s partner that day, testified that he saw Mr. Garner selling cigarettes from a distance nearly as long as a football field, a claim that prosecutors suggested was implausible. After the arrest, he said he had inflated the charges against Mr. Garner to a felony on paperwork and indicated there was no use of force.

Mr. Garner’s mother said she would continue pushing for the other officers involved in the case to be dismissed, including a lieutenant who said in a text her son’s death was not a big deal, officers who failed to render first aid to him and unidentified police officials who leaked sealed records to reporters about Mr. Garner’s health problems and past arrests.

“I’m going to continue to fight, because letting these officers stay on the force and continue to be paid by taxpayers is an injustice to Eric and it’s dangerous for all New Yorkers,” she said.