Grand jury ruling in Eric Garner chokehold death ignites outcry across US

World Today

Anger is igniting across the United States, one day after a grand jury chose not to indict a white police officer in New York City after for the chokehold death of an unarmed black man. Protests have taken place in Washington D.C., Chicago and other cities. CCTV America’s Liling Tan reported this story from New York City.

Demonstrators marched through major streets in New York, snarling traffic in some cases and criticizing the New York City Police Department for racism and police brutality.

“I can’t breathe,” protesters chanted, repeating the words that Eric Garner uttered moments before he lost consciousness and died after put in a police chokehold in Staten Island.

The protests come a little more than a week after another grand jury cleared a white police officer in the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri.

The two decisions to clear white police officers in the deaths of unarmed black men in such a short period of time has incensed racial tensions and fueled outrage over police aggression, prompting calls for change by civil rights leaders.

“We need to centralize and make clear that we want the Justice Department and the federal government to deal with the fact that the grand jury systems on a state level are broken and seem to lack the capacity to deal with police when you are dealing with questions of criminality and killings,” civil rights advocate Al Sharpton said.

New York City’s police union criticized earlier comments made by the city’s mayor, saying he failed to support officers while they serve their civic duty to protect the public.

The NYPD is conducting its own internal investigation into the death. At the federal level, the U.S. Justice Department is also investigating into the death of Garner.


Hilary Shelton of NAACP discusses race relations in the United States

CCTV America interviewed Hilary Shelton director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People about the current state of race relations and the justice system.