The widow of Eric Garner, Esaw Garner Snipes, criticized New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, calling him “full of malarkey” after his claims during the Democrat debates this week that the city is appropriately addressing the death of her husband.
Snipes insisted that the city is absolutely not addressing her husband’s death. “They just keep passing the buck and it’s really annoying,” she said, according to the Hill.
The unarmed Garner died while being apprehended by New York Police in 2014. NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo placed Garner in a headlock and choked him out as Garner was resisting arrest for selling black market cigarettes.
“They need to fire him,” Snipes added about the officer.
Pantaleo, the officer accused of killing Garner, is still with the force despite a recent recommendation from a judge that he be fired. NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill, though, is expected to follow the recommendation.
But during this week’s Democrat debate, Mayor de Blasio was criticized for not taking action against the officer accused of killing Garner.
De Blasio promised that some action would be taken in “30 days,” and he also insisted that the city could not make any official moves until the federal Department of Justice finished its own actions.
“I know the Garner family, they’ve gone through extraordinary pain,” de Blasio said on the debate stage. “They are waiting for justice, and they’re going to get justice. They’re going to finally get justice.”
De Blasio also promised that “there will never be another tragedy, there will never be another Eric Garner.”
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.