NYPD officers face questions about Eric Garner's death in rare judicial inquiry
CNN
Eric Garner's mother and other police reform advocates have begun questioning New York Police Department officers in court as part of a judicial inquiry on issues surrounding her son's death, pressing them on topics ranging from erroneously charging Garner with felony cigarette tax evasion to texting a colleague shortly after Garner's death that, "It's not a big deal."
Garner died in 2014 after being placed in an unauthorized chokehold by then-police officer Daniel Pantaleo and Garner's final words -- "I can't breathe" -- were captured on video and have become a rallying cry for police reform and the Black Lives Matter movement. During a 2019 departmental trial, a NYPD judge ruled that the chokehold led to a cascade of events that ended with Garner's death and recommended that Pantaleo be fired. He was fired in August of that year.