Justice

Every Hideous Thing That Police Unions Have Said About Eric Garner

Including: “The fact that he states eleven times that he can’t breathe proves he was actually breathing.”
A woman attends a candlelight vigil for Eric Garner on Martin Luther King Day.REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

Eric Garner was killed by a New York Police Department officer in July, 2014, over the crime of selling loose cigarettes outside a convenience mart in Staten Island. His final words—“I can’t breathe!”—have become an awful mantra for protesters demanding justice in the policing of black communities.

On Monday, New York City reached a $5.9 million settlement in the wrongful death claim filed by Garner’s family, just four days shy of the one-year anniversary of his death.