Appellate Court: Records of Cop in Garner Death Aren’t Public

A state appellate court has ruled that civilian complaints made to a police watchdog agency about the white officer involved in the chokehold death of unarmed black man Eric Garner should not be made public.

An earlier court ruled that the Civilian Complaint Review Board records of Officer Daniel Pantaleo could be made public. It said the agency is not part of the New York Police Department and therefore not subject to a state law that restricts the publicizing of personnel records.

The Legal Aid Society had sought access to Pantaleo’s civilian complaints and whether he’d been subjected to any discipline.

An appeals court on Thursday reversed the ruling.

Amid the debate, the data was leaked to a website by an investigator at the watchdog agency who was later fired.