โI canโt breath!โ Those were the dying words of 43-year-old Eric Garner on July 17, 2014, when he had a rear-naked chokehold applied to him by an NYPD officer after being accused of selling packs of cigarettes.
Garner eventually succumb to an asthma attack as a result right there on the New York City street and today the Justice Department has denied to file any federal charges against Officer Daniel Pantaleo who was responsible.
The decision by Attorney General William Barr came after the Department decided to side with the Eastern District of New Yorkโs recommendation not to prosecute despite the departmentโs civil rights divisionโs recommendation to move forward with a prosecution.
โThis should not have ended with the death of a person, but thatโs a very different question than whatโs presented to a prosecutor when deciding under the Justice manual whether a person should be indicted,โ the official said. โYou canโt watch the video and not feel great sympathy towards Eric Garner but then I think you have to impose a rigorous legal examination of the facts.โ
After the department apparently couldnโt establish the willful intent requirement, the official stated that the department didnโt even bother to determine whether or not Pantaleoโsย actions were permissible or reasonable within the policies of the NYPD. Furthermore, the official confirmed that the circumstances and legal analysis of the situation would be different if Pantaleo was a civilian and not a police officer.
So another example of state-sanctioned violence and murder at the hands of law enforcement.
