New Yorkers mark Garner’s death
A year after he died as officers arrested him, events focus on a call to further action.
NEW YORK — At the site of Eric Garner’s controversial death in police custody exactly one year ago, his 1year- old daughter, Legacy, on Friday helped release a single white dove into the air as a remembrance of her father.
The ceremony, one of several commemorations held around New York City, took place in the Tompkinsville section of Staten Island, where a shrine to Garner remains on the sidewalk, sandwiched between a beauty supply shop and a car service office along a busy commercial strip.
About two dozen supporters joined Legacy and her mother, Jewel Miller, who had been Garner’s companion. Many of the participants wore the same white T- shirt with the words, “A year without justice,” printed above a photograph of Garner.
Miller guided Legacy’s hand to open the dove’s wooden cage and, in a f lash, the bird f lew up into the blue summer sky and disappeared.
Before the dove’s release, supporters chanted, “I can’t breathe” 11 times, the number of times that Garner was heard saying those words in a video of his arrest that was captured by a bystander.
That phrase became a rallying cry at protests that followed Garner’s death, which attracted national attention for the issues it raised surrounding race and use of force by police.
Syler Pondolfino of Staten Island, who attended Friday’s ceremony, said the public must not forget what happened to Garner.
The videotape showed Officer Daniel Pantaleo wrestling Garner to the ground during an arrest for selling untaxed cigarettes and placing him in an apparent chokehold. Garner’s death was ruled a homicide, but a local grand jury declined to bring charges against the officer.
“I think it is important to remind people that this man was choked to death a year ago and the man who choked him and his accomplices are still free,” Pondolfino said.
Garner “was poor and struggling and maybe he did things to make money that weren’t standard, but he was not anyone who deserved the harassment that resulted in his death,” he said.
Elizabeth McCollin, who lives a few doors down, said residents remained angry about Garner’s death. The sidewalk shrine — a clear plastic box containing several pink teddy bears and notes of remembrance about the 43- year- old father of six — was a daily reminder of those emotions, she said.
“You see it in their faces when they walk by here. They are not pleased,” McCollin said. “People still feel remorse over his death, especially knowing they didn’t get an indictment.”
Related events took place across the city. Middle Collegiate Church in Manhattan’s East Village rang its bells at 3: 30 p. m., the approximate time of Garner’s arrest and death a year ago.
A small group of protesters, some carrying signs that read “Justice for Eric Garner” and “Black Lives Matter,” gathered for a lunchtime rally in Lower Manhattan. Participants later took the ferry to Staten Island to continue the rally at the site of his arrest.
Even though the Garner family this week accepted a $ 5.9- million settlement from the city for damages related to his death, relatives and supporters continue to call for a federal investigation into Pantaleo’s actions.
That message will be front and center at a Saturday rally organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton and Garner’s family outside the federal courthouse in Brooklyn.
“There is a community forming around this cause to break down an unfair justice system,” said Ilya Jalal, a community activist in Staten Island. “Things are not over. It’s just starting.”