Several thousand people marched in peace, Saturday, August 23, in Staten Island, to express their indignation after the death, last month in New York, of Eric Garner, a black father of 43 years immobilized by strangulation – a prohibited gesture – during his arrest by the police.
The death of Eric Garner, who was the father of six children, has revived the debate on police violence, in particular against minorities. This has since been fueled by the Michael Brown case, named after an 18-year-old black boy killed on August 9 by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. In the parade, many signs associated the two men.
Suspected of the illegal sale of cigarettes, Eric Garner, who had tried to resist, was pinned to the ground by several white police officers on July 17 in New York. In an amateur video, we see one of them shaking her neck. Obese and asthmatic, Garner repeatedly complains that he cannot breathe. He will then pass out, then be declared dead in hospital.
“JUSTICE” FOR ERIC GARNER AND MICHAEL BROWN
” I can not breathe “, chanted Saturday the demonstrators, who came by bus and ferry to Staten Island. “Black lives matter”, could be read on signs, while others complained « justice » for Eric Garner and Michael Brown, and demanded the arrest of Daniel Pantaleo, the police officer who compressed the neck of Eric Garner, who was simply transferred after the fact.
The demonstration took place in particular at the call of the NAN (National Action Network), organization of the leader of civil rights Al Sharpton. The black pastor was accompanied there by the widow of Eric Garner and several of his children. “If you can do this to him, it’s because no citizen is safe, and don’t count on us to keep silent when this happens”, did he declare.
Al Sharpton and Eric Garner’s family are asking, so far unsuccessful, for a federal investigation. On Tuesday, Staten Island prosecutor Dan Donovan announced the convening – in October – of a grand jury, a popular assembly responsible for deciding possible indictments.
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