NY protests over choke death ruling

The mobile phone video of the last moments of Eric Garner’s life showed a white police officer holding the unarmed black man in a chokehold as he repeatedly gasped, “I can’t breathe.”

Despite the video and a medical examiner’s ruling that the chokehold contributed to the death, a Staten Island grand jury decided not to bring any charges against the officer, prompting protests across the country and sending thousands onto New York’s streets, where they continued to march last night.

While legal experts note it’s impossible to know how the grand jurors reached their conclusion, they say the Garner case, like Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Missouri, once again raised concerns about the influence local prosecutors have over the process of charging the police officers they work with on a daily basis.

“The video speaks for itself,” said Jeffrey Fagan, a professor at Columbia Law School.

“It appears to show negligence. But if we learned anything from the Brown case, it’s the power of prosecutors to construct and manage a narrative in a way that can shape the outcome.”

Ekow N. Yankah, a professor at Cardozo School of Law, agreed that, “It is hard to understand how a jury doesn’t see any probable cause that a crime has been committed or is being committed when looking at that video, especially.”

US Attorney Eric Holder said federal prosecutors would conduct their own investigation of Garner’s July 17 death as officers were attempting to arrest him for selling untaxed cigarettes on the street. The New York Police Department also is doing an internal probe which could lead to administrative charges against officer Daniel Pantaleo, who remains on desk duty.

The grand jury’s decision prompted emotional protests around New York and in cities from Atlanta to California.

The same day, a white police chief in Eutawville, South Carolina, was charged with murder in the death of an unarmed black man after an argument at a town hall meeting.