Emerald Garner, the daughter of Eric Garner, criticized the way footage from Tyre Nichols’s arrest was released on Friday, saying it was treated like a “premiere of a movie.”
“The fact that we waited for this video to be released like it was an exclusive movie that needed to be premiered on a certain day, it really boils my blood,” Garner told NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo.
Memphis authorities released the footage from the Jan. 10 traffic stop that resulted in Nichols’s death on Friday evening. The graphic video showed the 29-year-old Black man being pepper-sprayed, tased and beaten by several police officers, five of whom have since been fired and charged with second-degree murder.
“Tonight was a direct show of just how they do things,” she said, adding, “You held it like it was a premiere of a move that needed to be watched by the world — a public lynching.”
Garner’s father was killed in an encounter with New York police in 2014. Video footage of the incident, in which Eric Garner can be heard repeatedly saying the now well-known refrain of “I can’t breathe,” prompted nationwide protests.
Emerald Garner noted on Friday that the swift justice seen in Nichols’s case, with several officers already being indicted, differs greatly from that of her father. Daniel Pantaleo, the ex-New York Police Department officer that held her father in a prohibited chokehold, did not face criminal charges and was not fired from the department until 2019, nearly five years after the incident occurred.
“For me, it’s always been, it’s a slap in the face. There was no justice,” Garner said of her father’s death. “In this case of Tyre Nichols, justice was served swiftly.”
“If we would have had that in 2014, would there have been a Tyre Nichols today?” she added. “I don’t think so.”