NEW YORK—“Is there anything you can do about it, you see, I am Eric Garner’s mother,” Gwen Carr said softly, after security officers told her they could not let her into Garner’s hearing.
The security guards at the Supreme Court on Staten Island were noticeably annoyed. Many protesters had flooded the courthouse to hear oral arguments Feb. 5 for the release of the grand jury records that resulted in no indictment for the officer who used a chokehold to arrest her unarmed son shortly before he died on the sidewalk.
“No ma'am,” a guard responded curtly. “Courtroom’s full.”
The courtroom, which seats roughly 65, had filled up long before the 10 a.m. start time. Disgruntled supporters slowly scattered down the stairs obeying instructions to clear a path.
Carr arrived 15 minutes late with Garner’s daughter, Erica Garner. At age 64, Carr’s body no longer moved as swiftly as it did during the days when she single-handedly raised six children.
Her droopy chestnut eyes looked around the courthouse and saw anger.
“What do you mean they can’t go in? Don’t they know who they are? Erica Garner’s picture is only in the papers like every other freaking day,” said a protester, fuming on the stairs.
Carr quickly told her entourage, a medley of loved ones and unknown faces, to remain calm.
Sure enough, within five minutes, word spread that Garner’s relatives could not enter the hearing and people began to give up their seats.
“That’s what I said, let’s not make a scene,” Carr recalled, chuckling to herself on her sepia couch a week later. “A lot of times I find that being calm, you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”
