On July 17th, 2014 Eric Garner was found to be selling tobacco on the street for cheap. When police tried to arrest him, he was put into a very strong chokehold and taken down by multiple other officers. During the struggle Eric yelled out “I can’t breathe” 11 times in an attempt to get his chokehold loose enough to breathe. After he was taken to the ground the police officer who had him in a chokehold continued to squeeze, while another officer crushed his head on the sidewalk. After struggling for just about a minute Eric Garner was dead.
Immediately after Eric’s death a video of the struggle between him and the officers was put on the internet by a bystander. The video shows how the helpless Eric Garner was killed by 5 cops. Many people felt that the 5 officers attempting to subdue a man who was not even resisting arrest was extremely unnecessary. On top of all of this chokeholds were something banned by the NYPD in 1993 and should not have even been used. Once Daniel Pantaleno was not indicted on any charges people began to protest this event more and more. By December 28th, 2014 there had been 50 protests just focused on the Eric Garner case. Due to this case on top of multiple other ones many Americans have been up in arms about police brutality.
Eric Garner’s case was recognized by people all over as a horrible incident. Many athletes such as many famous NFL and NBA players wore shirts that read “I can’t breathe”. Some very notable people to wear these shirts are Reggie Bush, LeBron James and Kobe Bryant. Multiple full teams such as the Phoenix Suns, Brooklyn Nets and others wore the shirts while they were warming up before game time and this helped to fuel the fire of the Eric Garner case. On sites like twitter, hashtags #Icantbreathe #EricGarner and others were also trending in discussions that were related to police brutality. Social media also played a major role in helping to raise awareness to the case as it was posted all over tons of video and other social media sites where it began trending.
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