Adam Brodsky

Adam Brodsky

Opinion

A cop’s dilemma: Garner’s death not the only tragedy

It’s easy to think of reasons not to be a cop, starting with: You can get killed.

When you’re a police officer, you walk around with a target on your back. You never know what danger you’ll face.

Jersey City Officer Melvin Santiago — a kid all of 23 years old — most likely never knew what hit him when a mad gunman shot him to death in an ambush last month at 4 in the morning.

Nor is it pleasant when you have to use force or fire your weapon. Someone could get hurt. A small child. Your partner. Even if it’s a thug you kill, you must live with the fact that you took a life.

To all this, add the “Sharpton effect”: Activists second-guess your split-second decisions.

Demonize you for doing your job. Demand your arrest. Try to destroy your good name, your career — your life. And all just to make themselves look like heroes.

None of those reasons were enough to keep Danny Pantaleo, 29, from joining the NYPD.

“Danny always knew he wanted to be a public servant,” a source close to the officer tells me. He wasn’t interested in making lots of money. “He just wanted to help people.”

Now some are holding Pantaleo responsible for the death of Eric Garner, who died after a scuffle with him and other cops trying to arrest him.

The facts remain unclear, but no matter. The activists want Pantaleo’s hide. Just calling for it boosts their standing.

The son of a city firefighter and nephew of a city cop, Pantaleo joined the force in July 2006. It was a natural next step: As a ­church-going Eagle Scout (and Staten Island native), he’d already done significant community service.

Since joining the force, he’s made more than 260 arrests, with only a relatively “small number of complaints,” my source says.

Pantaleo is most proud of being able to “protect people from those who would violate their rights,” he says.

The morning of the Garner incident, Pantaleo and his partner made an arrest for criminal possession of a deadly weapon: a knife. He might have expected his next call, illegal cigarette sales, to be more routine.

For one thing, Garner had been arrested time and again for the same offense, once even by Pantaleo himself. And Garner knew an arrest would be barely an inconvenience.

But Garner didn’t feel like being arrested: “It ends today,” he told cops, referring to the cycle of arrests. When the 6-foot-3, 350 lb. Garner fought efforts to cuff him, the cops used force.

Pantaleo, the video shows, put his arm around the big man’s neck in an attempt to bring him down and apply handcuffs.

Unclear is whether the cop’s arm was pressing hard enough against Garner’s throat to cause death. The medical examiner has yet to make a full report public.

What happened to Garner was tragic. But the aftermath can’t be easy for Pantaleo, either.

Already, the rabble-rousers have convicted him of excessive force and want him locked up. He may well face departmental and even criminal charges.

Staten Island DA Dan Donovan has convened a grand jury to investigate. Pantaleo’s career — and livelihood — may be on the line.

Plus, he has to live with the knowledge that a man died during an arrest in which he took part.

It’s got to be tough. But the source, who has spent time with Pantaleo since the incident, says he is “holding up,” despite “very stressful” circumstances.

“Danny was upset that there was a loss of life,” I’m told. “It’s something he’s going to have to live with the rest of his life.”

But the source also says Pantaleo believes he was “just doing what he was taught to do that day,” that he was just an officer trying to make an arrest. “I never woke up with the intention of hurting anyone,” he says.

Rogue cops need to be called to account. But until facts prove otherwise, police officers deserve at least the same presumption of innocence we give to criminals.

Remember, the 35,000 members of the NYPD interact with the public millions of times a year. Some of their moves are bound to seem excessive, especially when an arrest is resisted.

Second-guessing their actions — especially before investigations are complete — is unfair and unwise.

It’s the public that puts cops in tough situations; we demand that they enforce the law and make arrests. Before accusing an officer of having gone too far — intentionally — don’t we at least owe him the benefit of the doubt?

One thing is sure: If we rush to judgment in cases like Pantaleo’s, cops won’t be eager to confront criminals who resist. Not only do they run the risk of getting hurt, they also might wind up falsely accused.

And if they don’t make arrests, say goodbye to law and order — and everything that depends on it.

My source says Pantaleo is eager to get back to the streets but knows the immediate future will be difficult and the road “long.” Yet he’s not “disillusioned.”

“Hope springs eternal,” says the source. “He’s still the bright-eyed officer eager to help people.”