The widow of a New York City man who died this month in a videotaped confrontation with New York City police officers demanded justice on Saturday, saying the victim was not asking for trouble.
Eric Garner “was not a violent man — not in any way, shape or form,” his widow, Esaw Garner, said in what were said to be her first public remarks about the death. “He was a quiet man, but he’s making a lot of noise now.”
She said she got a text from her 43-year-old husband a half hour before he died on July 17 that read: “I’m good.”
The widow and other members of Garner’s family spoke at the Harlem headquarters of the Reverend Al Sharpton, a civil rights activist.
On Friday, Sharpton and the family met with federal prosecutors to ask them to bring a civil rights case against the New York Police Department (NYPD) officers who stopped Garner in Staten Island on suspicion of selling untaxed cigarettes.
A video shot by an onlooker shows Garner telling the officers to leave him alone and refusing to be handcuffed. In the clip, one appears to respond by putting Garner in a chokehold, which is banned under police policy. Garner is heard gasping “I can’t breathe.”
He was later pronounced dead at the hospital. Autopsy results are pending.
The NYPD is investigating, Staten Island prosecutors have launched a criminal probe, the officer has been placed on desk duty and other public safety workers involved have been pulled from the street. US Attorney General Eric Holder has said that the US Department of Justice is “closely monitoring” the investigation into Garner’s death.
“We want justice for my son... I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy,” said Gwen Carr, Garner’s mother.
Police also confirmed on Saturday that another officer has been placed on restricted duty after an amateur video surfaced that purportedly shows him stomping on the head of a Brooklyn drug suspect during a recent arrest.
In a statement, Patrolmen’s Association president Patrick Lynch cautioned against reading too much into the videos.
“Videotapes never present all of the facts in a situation,” Lynch said. “They never capture the criminal act or offense that brings police action to the scene. They present an isolated period of a police interaction, but never the entire scenario.”
The Garner family was joined on Saturday by the fiancee of Sean Bell, an unarmed man killed by NYPD officers in a 50-bullet barrage in 2006 on what would have been his wedding day.
Three officers were cleared of manslaughter charges, but the city was ordered to pay more than US$7 million in a wrongful death claim.
“Seeing this family is like looking in the mirror,” said Nicole Paultre Bell, who took her late finance’s name after his death.
Sharpton told the audience he is planning to rally support for a federal probe by inviting activists from across the country to march across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.
“We are not going to let this go. Can you imagine? A chokehold on videotape? If we can’t get justice here, we can’t get justice anywhere,” Sharpton said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema