Two years ago this December, then Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Department of Justice would proceed with a federal civil rights investigation into the death of Eric Garner, an unarmed resident of Staten Island who died five months earlier after an NYPD officer put him in a chokehold while trying to arrest Garner for allegedly selling loose cigarettes.
DOJ’s investigation would be handled by prosecutors in Brooklyn and Washington, Holder said. In civil rights cases, U.S. attorneys’ offices such as the one in Brooklyn and their counterparts at the Civil Rights Division in Washington work as partners. But last Monday, the department shifted the investigation to D.C. exclusively, taking the Brooklyn prosecutors off the case.
Though federal investigators convened a grand jury in Brooklyn, the investigation has dragged on, reportedly because of a disagreement among prosecutors there and in D.C, with the group in Brooklyn doubting whether they can prove in court that force used by Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who applied the chokehold to Garner, was unreasonable based on the circumstances. Their colleagues in Washington reportedly think they have enough evidence to proceed.
“It is taking quite a bit of time,” William Yeomans, a former acting assistant attorney general for civil rights, told the Times. “I’d almost say it’s been longer than expected, especially since a video exists.”
The video, of course, is the footage that shows Garner’s death after being subdued by Pantaleo. The city’s medical examiner ruled the death a homicide.
Holder convened the investigation within hours of a decision by a Staten Island grand jury not to charge Pantaleo. (The Staten Island grand jury considered whether Pantaleo’s conduct violated state law.)
The grand jury’s failure to charge Pantaleo sparked sparked protests world-wide. Garner’s last words, “I can’t breathe,” which he repeated 11 times, have become a rallying cry against mistreatment of Black people by the state.
“This is a small step forward,” Erica Garner, the victim’s daughter, said in a statement following the decision by DOJ to move the investigation to headquarters. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who succeeded Holder, is a former head of the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn.
The city agreed last year to pay Garner’s family $5.9 million to settle a claim of wrongful death in connection with his killing. The state’s highest court declined to order the release of transcripts from the grand jury that might have shed light on its deliberations. Pantaleo remains on desk duty and is likely to be disciplined by the department following the federal probe.
The NYPD in 1993 banned the use of chokeholds after the maneuver was implicated in a series of deaths. For his part, Pantaleo told the grand jury that he meant merely to tip Garner so that Garner would fall to the ground. Upon hearing Garner say he could not breathe, Pantaleo testified that he sought to separate himself from Garner as quickly as possible. But in the video, Pantaleo seems to continue to restrain Garner by the neck.
Now it falls to prosecutors in Washington to determine whether the NYPD violated Garner’s civil rights. What Garner says, as much as what the video shows, commands our attention.
“I can’t breathe,” he told the officers who pinned him to the pavement. “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.”