The New York City Police Department is planning to move forward with a departmental trial for the officer involved in the death of Eric Garner.
Tuesday marks four years since Garner was placed in a police chokehold by Officer Daniel Pantaleo on Staten Island. Garner was allegedly resisting arrest after being confronted about selling loose cigarettes.
“I can’t breathe,” Garner said repeatedly.
The NYPD has held off on a trial as the Justice Department investigates the incident, but now the NYPD said it has waited long enough. It has told the D.O.J. that unless it announces its intentions by the end of August, the NYPD will move forward with a departmental trial.
“Fire those officers. All of them. Not just Pantaelo. We want them all fired,” Garner’s mother Gwen Carr said.
The Reverend Al Sharpton accused the D.O.J. of dragging its feet on the Garner case.
“It is troubling and it should be troubling to them that they can go and deal with cases decades old but can’t deal with a case that is right, current, in front of the nation’s face,” Sharpton said.
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