(Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
- Emerald Garner spoke out about how authorities released the Tyre Nichols footage.
- Garner told NewsNation that it was rolled out like a “premiere of a movie.”
- Her father, Eric, was killed by an NYPD officer in 2014, sparking calls for justice.
The daughter of Eric Garner, who an NYPD officer fatally choked in 2014, spoke out about the footage of Tyre Nichols’ arrest, and sharply criticized how authorities handled the release.
“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,” Emerald Garner told NewsNation on Friday. “It’s just heart-wrenching.”
She told the outlet that it was a grim reminder of the fatal encounter her father had with Daniel Pantaleo, the former NYPD officer who put her father in a chokehold during an attempted arrest caught on cellphone video.
“It’s a replay of what happened eight years ago, almost nine…. to my father,” she said. “It’s ridiculous.”
—NewsNation (@NewsNation) January 28, 2023
On Friday, officials released the video of Memphis police officers brutally beating 29-year-old Tyre Nichols during a supposed traffic stop on January 7. He died three days later of injuries resulting from the incident, Insider previously reported. Prior to making the footage public, Cerelyn Davis, the Memphis Chief of Police, warned of the shocking nature of the video, which sparked inevitable civil unrest nationwide.
Prior to its release, Davis said the footage would be made public at an “appropriate time,” when it would not interfere with official investigations.
“We think about the entire public, to tell you the truth,” Davis previously told CNN. “We thought about schools, we thought about business, and we felt like Friday afternoon if there were individuals who decided they wanted to peacefully protest, at least other individuals would have gone home, schools would be out.”
The five officers involved have since been fired, charged with Nichols’ murder, and been released from jail on bond, as Insider previously reported.
During the interview with NewsNation, Emerald Garner said “justice was served swiftly” in Nichols’ case compared to her father’s. In her father’s case, Pantaleo was not criminally charged, but was fired years later in 2019.
“If we would have had that in 2014, would there have been a Tyre Nichols today? I don’t think so,” she said.
She later added, “Tonight was a direct show of just how they do things. You held the video. Why? Why couldn’t the family get their closure at the moment that they needed it? It had to be controlled by this system.”
“You held it like it was a premiere of a movie that needed to be watched by the world — a public lynching.”
