Chokehold Officer Daniel Pantaleo was reportedly sued twice for alleged racially motivated misconduct while on the job.
Two black men accused the eight-year veteran of the New York Police Department in March 2012 of subjecting them to an illegal strip search in broad daylight on Staten Island – the borough where Eric Garner died July 17 after his chokehold takedown by Pantaleo for selling untaxed cigarettes, according to
the Staten Island Advance.
Their suit was settled for $30,000 last January, the newspaper reports.
In the lawsuit, Pantaleo and several other officers allegedly "unlawfully stopped" a vehicle in which the plaintiffs were riding; the men, Darren Collins and Tommy Rice -- a federally convicted gun felon who had been released from prison five months prior -- filed their suit in Brooklyn federal court.
According to the suit, Pantaleo and another officer "pulled down the plaintiffs' pants and underwear, and touched and searched their genital areas, or stood by while this was done in their presence." The men were handcuffed at the time, the Advance reports.
Pantaleo and another officer then strip-searched the me again at the local police precinct, forcing them "to remove all of their clothing, squat, cough and lift their genitals," according to the lawsuit.
The cases against both men were ultimately dismissed; each received $15,000 settlements from the city, the Advance reported last summer.
A second lawsuit against Pantaleo - filed by Rylawn Walker in Manhattan federal court last February – remains open, the newspaper reports.
In that case, Walker alleges Pantaleo arrested him in February 2012 even though he was "committing no crime at that time and was not acting in a suspicious manner."
The lawsuit doesn't specify the circumstances of the arrest, but alleges Pantaleo "misrepresented facts in the police reports and other documents that the plaintiff had committed offenses when in fact this was not true," the Advance reports.
Walker was charged with marijuana-related offenses, but the case against him was dismissed and sealed in criminal court, the Advance reports.
The lawsuits came to light after the July 17 chokehold death of Garner – caught in grisly detail on a cellphone video taken by a bystander in which Garner can be heard gasping, "I can't breathe! I can't breathe!"
On Wednesday, a Staten Island grand jury decided
not to indict Pantaleo in the case; a
federal investigation will be launched, and Pantaleo is also being investigated by the police department's
internal affairs bureau.