(NewsNation) — The daughter of Eric Garner, who died at the hands of an NYPD officer nearly nine years ago, believes if her family had seen justice, the police beating of Tyre Nichols may have never happened.
“In this case of Tyre Nichols, justice was swift. If we (the Garner family) would have had that in 2014, would there have been a Tyre Nichols today? I don’t think so,” said Emerald Snipes-Garner.
Unlike in her father’s case, the officers in the Nichols video were all immediately fired, arrested and charged. Going forward, Snipes-Garner wants the focus to be on the Nichols family.
“His family needs support,” she said. “(The Nichols family) need mental health support. They need emotional support. They need all of these things to get through this trial. I would like to see mental health services provided for them at no cost.”
Garner, 43, was killed in Staten Island, New York, in July of 2014 after NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo placed him in an unauthorized chokehold. Garner’s struggle to breathe was captured on bystander video and his cries of “I can’t breathe,” a phrase he repeated 11 times, became a national rallying cry against police brutality.
The medical examiner ruled Garner’s cause of death a homicide.
A Staten Island grand jury declined to indict Pantaleo, and then-U.S. Attorney General William Barr ordered the federal case against him to be dropped in July of 2019.
Pantaleo was fired from the NYPD in August of 2019, more than five years after Garner’s death.
Watch the full interview with Emerald Snipes-Garner in the video above.