Eric Garner’s Family Pushes For Anti-Chokehold Bill After Screening Of ‘American Trial’

After the screening of American Trial: The Eric Garner Story, Eric Garner’s family is pushing for an Anti-Chokehold Bill.

What We Know:

• American Trial: The Eric Garner Story is a hybrid documentary/drama that premiered in mid-October at the 57th New York Film Festival.
• “The film featured a mock trial that was filmed live to represent a fictionalized depiction of what might have happened if Eric Garner was not dismissed by a Staten Island, N.Y grand jury,” according to The Root.
• Five years ago, 43-year-old Eric Garner’s story became worldwide after Officer Daniel Pantaleo approached Garner and tried to arrest him for allegedly selling loose cigarettes. 

• An innocent bystander, Ramsey Orta, recorded the incident on his cell phone when Officer Pantaleo put Gardner in a chokehold. Gardner repeatedly called out, “I can’t breath” over 11 times but his pleas were not heeded. He died on the sidewalk and paramedics were unable to revive him.
• In the film, it becomes more bizarre when the whole trial comes down to the nitty-gritty of Pantaleo’s hand positions and what actually qualifies it to be a fatal chokehold.
• Dr. Michael Baden, a former New York City Medical Examiner shared his thoughts on the outcome of the Garner case. He stated, “I was very disappointed in the grand jury verdict not to go further, I think there is no question that in going over everything and going over all the records examining everything from the forensic pathology point of view, Eric Garner would not have died if the police hadn’t gotten ahold of him. He died because of pressure on the neck that not only obstructs blood flow in the carotid arteries but compresses the windpipe, so a person couldn’t breathe.”

• Pantaleo is now suing the NYPD and O’Neill in an attempt to get reinstated to the NYPD after he was publicly fired as a New York City police officer.

There is a petition at change.org for people who support the Anti-Chokehold Bill to sign. The Garner family not only want the chokehold to be banned but they would like to make it a federal law with a sentencing of 25 years to life for violating anybody in a chokehold by a police officer.