$5.9M Eric Garner Settlement Won't Quiet New York Activists

New York City may have settled with Eric Garner’s family for $5.9 million yesterday, but the settlement is having no apparent effect on the morale of New York activists who’ve been calling for justice since Garner was killed by police in Staten Island last summer.

This Saturday, July 17, marks exactly one year since Garner died after being put in a chokehold by NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo.

Citizen videos of the New York father’s agonizing death on a city sidewalk have since been viewed millions of times on YouTube. They show a pack of backup officers piling onto Garner, compressing his chest until Garner utters his famous last words: “I can’t breathe.”

Now, Garner’s biggest advocates — including his family, members of the #BlackLivesMatter movement and the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) — are, if anything, ramping up their efforts at the one-year mark.

At a local press conference with Reverend Al Sharpton today, Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, told reporters: “Don’t congratulate us. This is not a victory. The victory will come when we get justice. Then we can have a victory party.”

For Garner supporters, “justice” necessarily includes an indictment for Officer Pantaleo.

Although New York City’s medical examiner ruled Garner’s death a homicide, a state-level grand jury decided Pantaleo was innocent.

Garner’s daughter, Erica, said at today’s presser that she and her family will only stop fighting “when we get indictments and when we get a fair trial.” She called on the U.S. Department of Justice and Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who agreed last December to take a second look at the case, to “deliver justice.”

A massive rally called ”Still Can’t Breathe” is being planned outside the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn this coming Saturday at noon — the one-year anniversary of Garner’s death.

The NYCLU, which has been a leading advocate for local police accountability, will attend Saturday’s rally alongside Rev. Sharpton and family members of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Sean Bell and other victims of police brutality.

NYCLU attorneys also plan to continue their legal battle to publicize records from the grand jury trial that failed to indict Pantaleo.

“The fight is not over,” says the organization on Twitter.

An NYCLU spokesperson says she cannot comment on ongoing legal matters, but says that justice for Garner will be incomplete without full “accountability and transparency” surrounding Pantaleo’s trial.

Another Staten Island resident — Taisha Allen, one of the bystanders who captured Garner’s death on video — is reportedly going ahead with her own lawsuit in Brooklyn Federal Court. NYPD officers who recognize her from the Garner case have repeatedly harassed and even falsely arrested her in the year since, her lawsuit claims.

“They killed him and there’s not telling what they can do to me,” Allen tells the New York Daily News.