New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) responded over Twitter Wednesday night to protesters who interrupted his opening remarks during the Democratic presidential primary debate, thanking them and saying he heard them.
In a Twitter thread, the mayor addressed the Justice Department’s decision this week not to charge the police officer involved in the 2014 death of Eric Garner, an African American man suspected of illegally selling untaxed cigarettes.
{mosads}”To the protestors in the audience today: I heard you. I saw you. I thank you,” he tweeted. “This is what democracy looks like and no one said it was pretty.”
“I want the Garner family and every single person hurt by the tragedy of his death to know they are seen and heard,” he added. “We all watched Eric Garner’s dying words. They haunted this nation. He NEVER should have died.”
“While I believe that respecting the process is the best way to get justice for Eric Garner’s family, I recognize and identify with the pain people across this country are feeling,” de Blasio said. “From ending a broken policy of stop-and-frisk to training our officers in implicit bias, we’ve fundamentally changed our city because of Eric Garner — so that a tragedy like this never happens again.”
The mayor was not the only candidate on Wednesday’s stage to be interrupted by protesters: Former Vice President Joe Biden was also targeted by activists who chanted slogans referring to the Obama administration’s record of deportations.
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), de Blasio’s 2020 rival, tweeted his own response to the protesters, writing: “To the folks who were standing up to Mayor de Blasio a few minutes ago—good for you.”