On Wednesday morning, Eric Garner’s mother, daughter and cousin marched to the beauty supply store on Bay Street in Staten Island where he was killed exactly 10 years earlier.
Legacy Garner Miller, Garner’s 10-year-old daughter, traveled from Pennsylvania with her mother for the occasion. She was a baby when her dad was killed, and said she still thinks of him — but not too often, because it makes her sad.
“Daniel Pantaleo murdered my dad and nothing happened to him,” she told Gothamist, referring to the police officer who was fired for killing Garner by using an illegal chokehold.
Eric Garner’s mother Gwen Carr marches on the 10 year anniversary of her son’s killing by an NYPD officer in Staten Island.
Scott Heins/Gothamist
On July 17, 2014, police accused Garner of selling illegal cigarettes. Pantaleo, who was filmed choking Garner, was fired five years later but not criminally charged.
Gwen Carr, Garner’s mother, hugged activists on Wednesday as a crowd of reporters shuffled around to photograph her and her family. Several police cars escorted protesters, who gathered outside the beauty supply store to chant, eat and play basketball.
Several young men stood across the street and recalled what happened to Pantaleo after Garner’s death.
Fola Dare (left), and Dot Dotts (right) at a rally commemorating the 10 year anniversary of Eric Garner’s killing by an NYPD officer on Staten Island.
Scott Heins/Gothamist
“It’s not nothing new,” Fola Dare, 32, told Gothamist. “They been killing us and getting away with it.”
New Yorkers are now reporting that police use illegal chokeholds almost as often as they did 10 years ago, according to a Gothamist analysis of city data and media accounts. The city’s police watchdog agency has substantiated roughly 3% of those complaints. The NYPD has banned chokeholds since at least 1993, when then-Commissioner Ray Kelly instituted a policy he said was meant to clarify a 1985 order.
When it comes to officer involvement in civilian deaths, the NYPD only publicly shares data on shootings — not death by other causes. NYPD officers have shot and killed at least 95 people since Garner’s death in 2014, Gothamist’s analysis found. At least eight officers were fired from their jobs, and three were criminally charged.
