New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) on Wednesday marked 10 years since the death of Eric Garner, a black man killed by police in 2014, calling his death a “painful chapter in the history” of the city.
“Today marks 10 years since the tragic death of Eric Garner. The events that occurred on July 17, 2014 are a painful chapter in our city’s history,” Mayor Adams said. wrote in a post on social platform X“But Eric’s death was not in vain. While there is still work to be done, we have learned from this tragedy to ensure this never happens again.”
Garner’s death at the hands of police sparked the widespread Black Lives Matter movement in 2014, which called for action against police brutality.
Adams, a former police officer, Tuesday press conference He prays that “an Eric Garner incident” never happens again.
“In the case of Eric Garner, I remember like it was yesterday when I got the phone call. I remember going to the wake and meeting and talking with the family,” he said.
Garner was put in a chokehold by police in Staten Island on July 17, 2014. Police claimed they were arresting Garner for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes. Bystander video showed Garner being put in a chokehold, saying “I can’t breathe,” and losing consciousness. Garner was pronounced dead at a hospital.
The officer who put Garner in a chokehold, Officer Daniel Pantaleo, was fired in 2019. Although the city medical examiner’s office ruled Garner’s death a homicide, neither Pantaleo nor the other officers at the scene were ever charged with a crime.
Authorities in New York later discovered that Pantaleo had used a chokehold, a technique banned by the NYPD in the 1990s, according to the Associated Press.
Garner’s family settled a lawsuit against the city for $5.9 million in 2021 and called for justice through a judicial investigation into Garner’s death that same year, the news agency added.
In comments Wednesday, the New York chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called for further action against deadly police violence.
“A decade later, not enough has been done to end the epidemic of deadly police violence against Black people,” the group said. I wrote to X“Eric Garner should still be alive.”
The Rev. Al Sharpton said he attended a vigil in Garner’s memory at the site where he was killed, along with Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, and members of the National Action Network.
“We came together to show that even in the midst of pain and anger, our community stands united, not divided,” Sharpton wrote. Long post about X“We will continue to fight together in Eric’s name against injustice and police brutality. While some progress has been made with body cameras and the Eric Garner Act, true justice and accountability for Eric’s death remains elusive.”
Six years after Garner’s death, the death of George Floyd, who uttered the same words while pleading for air during a confrontation with police, reignited a new wave of Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020.
