Denis Slattery
New York Daily News
ALBANY, N.Y. — “I can’t breathe.”
The dying words of Eric Garner have become a rallying cry of protests against police brutality and now a New York law could soon bear his name.
State lawmakers approved a bill Monday allowing prosecutors to charge police officers who injure or kill someone by placing them in a chokehold with a felony.
The “Eric Garner Anti-Chokehold Act” was passed as part of a slate of police reform bills being voted on this week and is named for Garner, a Staten Island man who died in 2014 as a since-fired NYPD cop held him in the maneuver.
Chokeholds are already barred by the department, but the law goes further by establishing the crime of aggravated strangulation as a felony.
“This is an important step forward, but it will not be the last,” said sponsor Assemblyman Walter Mosley (D-Brooklyn). “We must work to change the way that police officers interact with communities of color, or we will continue to see these killings occur.”
Mosely’s bill was first introduced in 2014, shortly after Garner’s death. It languished in Albany as Republicans held control of the Senate until last year. Sen. Brian Benjamin (D-Harlem) sponsored the bill in the Senate.
Gov. Cuomo has said he will sign the measure.
The legislation gained renewed attention in recent weeks following the death of George Floyd, an African-American man killed in Minneapolis as a police officer held a knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes. In a video of Floyd’s death, he can be heard repeatedly telling the cops a chilling, familiar refrain: “I can’t breathe.”
Protests have engulfed the country in the wake of Floyd’s death. The officer who held Floyd down with his knee has been fired and charged with murder.
“Eric Garner’s dying words have been chanted in the streets of New York for nearly six years,” Benjamin said. “Now, they have reached a deafening roar as worldwide protests against police brutality continue in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, another Black life lost to excessive force by police officers.”
Daniel Pantaleo, the cop who placed Garner in a chokehold six years ago was fired only last year for using the banned move. The Staten Island district attorney and the Justice Department declined to charge him with a crime.
Pantaleo was among a group of cops who confronted Garner, 43, about allegedly selling illegal cigarettes in an incident captured on video by a bystander.
The video shows Pantaleo jumping on Garner’s back, wrapping his forearm around his neck and driving him into the sidewalk. Garner repeatedly pleaded with Pantaleo to let him go, muttering “I can’t breathe,” between his final gasps for air.
The state Legislature is voting on nine other police reform-related bills this week in response to the recent unrest.