A New York City police lieutenant who shot and killed a man after pulling him over for not wearing a seatbelt should be fired, a police administrative judge recommended in a rare ruling that will ultimately go to Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch for a final decision.
The officer, Lt. Jonathan Rivera, was a sergeant on Oct. 17, 2019, when he and two other officers were patrolling near Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. One of the officers, Lieutenant Rivera’s partner at the time, saw that the driver of a passing Volkswagen Atlas, Allan Feliz, did not appear to have his seatbelt on.
When they pulled him over and ran his driver’s license, they found several open warrants for failing to pay fines for spitting and littering, and they moved to pat him down. That is when Mr. Feliz, 31, tried to drive away. As Lieutenant Rivera’s partner struggled to pull him out of the car, Lieutenant Rivera tried to subdue him with a Taser, then shot him once in the chest, killing him.
Lieutenant Rivera argued that he believed the lives of his fellow officers were at risk, but Rosemarie Maldonado, deputy police commissioner of trials who oversees disciplinary hearings, said she did not believe him when he testified during an internal trial last November.
She concluded that he had tailored his comments on the stand to play down his culpability, which undermined his credibility, according to a draft of the report, which was handed down last Friday and obtained by The New York Times.
Ms. Maldonado said the killing was not justified because Lieutenant Rivera, who had been working at the department since 2010, did not have any sound reason to believe the lives of his fellow officers were at risk, she said.
She found him guilty of first-degree assault and violating department guidelines on the use of force.
The case was brought by prosecutors for the Civilian Complaint Review Board, New York City’s independent police oversight agency, who accused Lieutenant Rivera of first-degree assault and second-degree menacing. Ms. Maldonado dismissed the menacing charge.
Lawyers for the board and for Lieutenant Rivera will have an opportunity to respond to Ms. Maldonado’s recommendation.
The ultimate decision on the lieutenant’s firing will be made by Commissioner Tisch.
The last time a Police Department officer was recommended for termination was in the case of Daniel Pantaleo, whose chokehold led to Eric Garner’s death in 2014.
That recommendation was also handed down by Ms. Maldonado.
The police commissioner at the time, James P. O’Neill, dismissed Mr. Pantaleo in August, 2019, five years after Mr. Garner’s dying words — “I can’t breathe” — helped to galvanize the Black Lives Matter protests that led to changes in policing practices in New York and around the country.
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