Erica Garner, Daughter of NYPD Chokehold Victim, Is Brain Dead After Heart Attack

Erica Garner, Daughter of NYPD Chokehold Victim, Is Brain Dead After Heart Attack
Erica Garner, daughter of Eric Garner, leads a march of people protesting the Staten Island, New York grand jury's decision not to indict a police officer involved in the chokehold death of Eric Garner in July, on December 11, 2014 in the Staten Island Neighborhood of New York City. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
Janita Kan
12/28/2017
Updated:
12/28/2017

The oldest daughter of Eric Garner, the African-American man who was placed in a chokehold by a police officer, has been declared brain dead with no chance of recovery.

Family members were called to Woodhull Hospital to say their final goodbyes to Erica Garner, 27, on the morning of Thursday, Dec. 28, five days after the mother of two suffered a massive heart attack, reported the New York Daily News.

The 27-year-old activist had been in a coma since Christmas Eve when an asthma attack triggered a heart attack, reported the newspaper. She was put on life support on Thursday morning.

“She’s not gone, she’s brain dead,” her mother, Esaw Snipes, told the Daily News. “Physically she is still with us.”

Snipes said doctors discovered that her daughter had heart problems during a pregnancy more than four months ago, reported The New York Times.

According to the person running the official Twitter account for Erica Garner, a CAT scan revealed that Garner “had suffered major brain damage from a lack of oxygen while in cardiac arrest.”

Garner became an outspoken critic of police brutality and campaigned for police accountability in 2014, after her father’s death on Staten Island. Her father’s pleas of “I can’t breathe!” after he was put in a chokehold by a police officer became a protest chant across the country.

Social media users have sent Garner and her family prayers in hope that a miracle would happen.

“Right now, the family is just praying and asking for everyone to keep her in their prayers,” Garner’s heartbroken mother told the Times.

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