Amsterdam News Staff
A federal grand jury continues to examine and hear evidence to determine if Eric Garner’s civil rights were violated in 2014 when a police officer killed him in an apparent chokehold. The proceedings continue even as the family is awarded a $1 million settlement from Richmond University Medical Center.
On Wednesday morning, the Garner family held a rally at U.S. District Court in downtown Brooklyn, repeating their call for officer Daniel Pantaleo to be prosecuted in Garner’s death. Officers are reportedly being called to testify before the grand jury.
Demonstrators braved the wind and rain to let their voices be heard. One protestor held a sign that read, “[Loretta] Lynch, first you were here now you are there. We need justice everywhere.”
The proceedings began earlier this month. Pantaleo’s attorney, Stuart London, maintains that his client used a legal takedown method, which was caught on cellphone video, when he was trying to arrest Garner on Staten Island for selling untaxed cigarettes. He denies that Garner’s civil rights were violated.
“This was a police officer just doing his job,” London said in one report. “It was a simple street encounter with no animosity toward Mr. Garner.”
The federal investigation was called by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder after a Staten Island grand jury failed to indict Pantaleo. The grand jury’s decision led to harsh criticism and protests.
Just one day before the family called for the federal grand jury’s prosecution of Pantaleo, news broke that Richmond University Medical Center will award the Garner family a $1 million settlement. The medical center’s paramedics were called to the scene to treat Garner.
Court documents say the “EMTs did not conduct the appropriate examination” of Garner at the scene and “failed to provide him with the necessary life-saving procedures.”
In the video of the incident in 2014, an officer is heard saying that Garner was breathing after someone asked why the paramedics were not performing CPR on him. He went into cardiac arrest while on the stretcher.
Doctors tried to resuscitate him in the ambulance and in the emergency room before he died. Garner’s death was ruled a homicide by the city’s medical examiner.
As a result, four people, which includes two paramedics and two EMTs, were reportedly suspended without pay but have since been reinstated.
The $1 million settlement for the family adds to the nearly $6 million settlement the family received from the city in 2015.
The case has made its way into the presidential campaign as Garner’s daughter, Erica, endorsed Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders. She appeared in an ad in South Carolina showing her support.
“The way I feel, if these politicians are not going to talk about our issues, they should not be allowed to speak at all,” Garner said in one interview. “I was like, ‘Wow, I never heard of him!’ I spoke to a reporter recently. He told me [Sanders is] from the same neighborhood in Brooklyn that I’m from and that his father was a Polish immigrant, and he lived in the same low-income tenements that’s around in my neighborhood.”