$5.9m payout for family of man who died after being put in chokehold

The relatives of an unarmed black man who died after being put in a white police officer’s chokehold said yesterday that the nearly $6 million settlement they reached with the city wasn’t a victory as they continued pressing for federal civil rights charges.

“The victory will come when we get justice,” Eric Garner’s mother Gwen Carr said a day after the $5.9m settlement was announced.

Garner’s death, along with the fatal shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old black man in Ferguson, Missouri, last August by a white police officer, sparked protests around the US by people outraged over police treatment of African-Americans.