For Immediate Release:

December 3, 2014

Contacts:

Kayla Keller, kayla@fitzgibbonmedia.com, 281.682.6212

CJ Frogozo, cj@fitzgibbonmedia.com, 310.570.2622

Statement from Rashad Robinson, Executive Director of ColorofChange.org, on today’s non-indictment decision in the death of Eric Garner:

“Today’s refusal by a NYC grand jury to indict NYPD Officer Daniel Panatelo for choking Eric Garner to death once again highlights the inability of local prosecutors to hold officers fully accountable for senseless violence perpetrated against Black and brown folks and underscores the need for Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice to intervene and set a higher standard of policing.

“The total lack of accountability for police officers responsible for Eric Garner’s death is completely unacceptable. Just one week after Mike Brown’s killer, Officer Darren Wilson, was shielded from justice by a St. Louis prosecutor. It’s an outrage and sends the devastating message that police are above the law and that they will not be held accountable for unjustly taking the life of Black folks. Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan should hold his head in shame.

“Officer Daniel Pantaleo was caught on camera choking Garner to death, but even when video is involved, the wheels of justice don’t seem to move when Black people are injured or killed by police. To prevent the next Eric Garner or Mike Brown, we desperately need sweeping reforms to police training, oversight, and accountability. We need training programs to transform a policing culture that undervalues Black lives and sees violence as routine. And police need to know that they will be held accountable for their violence against our communities. Right now, we have a system that routinely exonerates police for unnecessary and deadly violence against unarmed Black people.

“Our deepest condolences are with Eric Garner’s family, his wife, and six children, who will have to spend the holiday season without their loved one. ColorOfChange is prepared to continue to organize alongside them, and so many other families that have been torn apart by police violence and grow a nationwide movement against the crisis of violent policing and a criminal justice system that fails Black folks every day.

“More than 43,000 ColorOfChange members raised their voices and demanded justice for Eric Garner and an end to Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner Bill Bratton’s Broken Windows policing tactic that encourages the hyper enforcement of low-level nonviolent offense. We will not sit silently as Black folks like Eric Garner are profiled, targeted, and killed by police and their killers are shielded by local prosecutors and allowed to get away with murder.”

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