The Rev. Al Sharpton on Sunday blasted the cops and emergency services workers who stood by as a diabetic dad lay unresponsive on a Staten Island sidewalk after being put in a chokehold by a police officer.
“What bothers me is that the nation watches a man say, ‘I can’t breathe’ and the choking continues,” he said in front of several hundred people who gathered to hear him speak at Riverside Church.
Esaw Garner, center, wife of Eric Garner, breaks down in the arms of Rev. Herbert Daughtry and Rev. Al Sharpton, right, during a rally on July 19.Photo: AP
“Even if police procedures don’t kick in, when does your sense of humanity kick in?”
The man put in the chokehold, Eric Garner, died of cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital Thursday.
He was overweight and suffered from asthma along with having diabetes.
A preliminary autopsy report said the chokehold did not damage his wind pipe or neck bones, but a source close to the medical probe said it could have caused his death by aggravating his existing health conditions.
The chokehold incident was caught on video. A second video also showed the minutes afterward, in which cops and emergency workers stand around and do not to aid the man as he lays apparently unconscious on the ground.
“I was outraged by the first tape and utterly disgusted by the second tape,” Sharpton said.
Sharpton referred to the killing of Jersey City cop Melvin Santiago, who was slain while responding to a report of an armed robbery at a drug store, noting: “Last week in New Jersey, a man ambushed a policeman and [the suspect's] loved ones said he should have killed more cops. That is just as wrong.”
Sharpton said society can’t exist if people defend cop-killers and chokeholds by police.
“It’s the twenty-first century and we’re still having these arguments?” he said.
Yahoo Local News – New York Post
http://ift.tt/1yO8E54
via Great Local News: New York http://ift.tt/1iZiLP1
No comments:
Post a Comment