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With their heads tilted downwards, the family members of black men who recently died at the hands of police—Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Akai Gurley—linked arms and closed their eyes in prayer.
The family of a man who died after being placed in a police chokehold has filed a notice of claim to sue New York City, the Police Department, and six individual police officers for $75 million.
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s relationship with police, already strained by accusations that he sided with frequent NYPD critic Al Sharpton over the chokehold death of an unarmed suspect, suffered another hit with revelations that a top aide is living with a convicted killer who has often mocked officers as “pigs.”
At Saturday’s march in Staten Island protesting Eric Garner’s death, the crowd’s grievances took a decidedly more racial tone, critical of the police’s targeting of black communities.
A day after the NYC medical examiner ruled that a chokehold had caused Eric Garner’s death, the Rev. Al Sharpton and Garner’s family called for the arrest of the police officer who had performed an apparent chokehold on Garner.
The climate was raw and strained along the short Bay Street where Eric Garner, a 43-year-old black man, died while being arrested on Thursday.
