Hundreds of protesters took to the streets across New York and in other cities Wednesday evening after a Staten Island grand jury said it would not indict a white police officer in the death of a black man.
The grand jury’s decision prompted Attorney General Eric Holder to announce the opening of a federal civil rights investigation.
The grand jury declined to bring charges in the death of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old Staten Island man who died in July after a New York police officer placed him in an apparent chokehold during an arrest.
The decision struck many protesters as a chilling and frustrating repetition of events in Ferguson, Mo., where a grand jury last month declined to indict the white officer who killed Michael Brown, a black 18-year-old.
The Brown case ignited waves of protests and a national debate over the treatment that black men receive at the hands of law enforcement officers.
The country has been confronted with a series of images of unarmed black men who have died after encounters with police: video of Garner grappling with officers on a sidewalk, pictures of Brown’s body lying in a street and surveillance footage of a black 12-year-old in Cleveland, Tamir Rice, who was fatally shot after a police officer mistook his toy gun for a weapon.
Holder, in announcing the federal civil rights investigation of the Staten Island case, sought to tamp down the furor.
“Mr. Garner’s death was one of several recent incidents across our great country that tested our sense of trust,” he said.
Holder said the vast majority of officers perform honorably and “it’s for their sake as well that we must seek to heal the breakdown in trust.”
President Barack Obama, speaking earlier at an event in Washington, declined to comment specifically about the Staten Island case, referring instead to his plans to promote better relations between police and those they serve. Those efforts included an initial round of White House meetings.
“We are not going to let up until we see a strengthening of the trust and a strengthening of the accountability that exists between our communities and our law enforcement,” Obama said. “We are seeing too many instances where people just do not have confidence that folks are being treated fairly. And in some cases, those may be misperceptions. But in some cases that’s a reality.”
Garner, a father of four and grandfather of two, died July 17 after Officer Daniel Pantaleo placed him in what appeared to be a chokehold during an arrest that was recorded on videos that have been widely seen.
Pantaleo’s attorney, Stuart London, said, “Although my client is gratified that the Staten Island grand jury found in his favor, he is well aware that there was a loss of life in this case. So there are no winners.”
The New York Police Department bans the use of the chokehold, and London said that the officer used an approved take-down move, which he learned in the police academy, because Garner was resisting arrest.
Kim Ortiz, an organizer with Copwatch in the Bronx, pumped her fist to the chant of protesters shouting, “Shut it down,” during a Wednesday evening demonstration in Times Square.
She said she had participated in protests over the lack of a prosecution in the Ferguson case. “I feel like it’s the same rage, just a different victim,” she said.
Garner’s wife, Esaw, and mother, Gwen Carr, speaking on MSNBC on Wednesday evening, expressed outrage at the decision. “Were they looking at the same video the rest of the world was looking at?” asked Carr, referring to the grand jury.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said that Garner’s father had urged nonviolence in the wake of the decision, despite “unspeakable pain.”
“It’s a very emotional day for our city. It’s a very painful day for so many New Yorkers: That is a core reality,” de Blasio said. “We’re grieving again over the loss of Eric Garner.”
