Garner hailed at rite as fierce advocate

THE MESSAGE remains pinned to the top of Erica Garner’s Twitter page, a testament from the grave of her undying quest for justice.

“If playing the race card is fighting for human rights for Black people unapologetically,” Garner wrote, “Then DEAL ME IN!!!”

Hundreds of mourners saluted Garner on Monday at a Harlem funeral and said the city and the cause for justice are better off because of her.

“When her father died, she was the one going out there in Staten Island every Tuesday and Thursday,” said the Rev. Kevin McCall. “She was the one to bring this to a national level.”

Eric Garner, 43, died in July 2014 when a cop used a banned chokehold while trying to arrest him for allegedly selling loose cigarettes on Staten Island.

There were tense moments when some family members, including when Eric Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, could not get into the First Corinthian Baptist Church on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. for the service. Jilted relatives blamed the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, but Sharpton said the family was responsible for the guest list.

Garner, 27, emerged after her father’s death as an outspoken critic of police brutality. She died last month after lapsing into a coma following an asthma-induced heart attack. She leaves behind two children, a daughter, 8, and a son, 4 months.

“In the name of Erica and her father, we’re going to keep fighting,” Sharpton said.

About a block from the church, a group gathered Monday night, leading to a moment caught on video where a man yelled, “I can’t breathe!” — Eric Garner’s last words — as cops subdued him. Police said about 50 people were marching from W. 116th St. and Lenox Ave. when a man blocked the path of an NYPD van. James Woody, 35, of the Bronx, banged his bicycle on the van and cops arrested him, a police spokesman said.

Police couldn’t say if he was the man in the video.

Another group of protesters gathered at the 120th Precinct stationhouse in Staten Island and headed to the spot where Garner died. They dispersed without incident, cops said.

Mourners walk alongside the flower-topped casket of Erica Garner (inset) Monday in Harlem, where the 27-year-old was remembered for her activism after her father, Eric Garner, died in a police chokehold in 2014.