Eric Garner's death set off protests in New York City, where a police officer put him in a fatal chokehold, and across the United States. "I can't breathe," his videotaped final words, have since become a focal point for the movement against police brutality.
Eighteen months later, his mother wants to turn national outrage into action, and says Hillary Clinton is the only presidential candidate talking about a "strategic" solution to the problem.
Gwen Carr published her endorsement of Clinton on the candidate's website Thursday, writing that everyone needs to be involved in the election.
"With all the violence and injustice that’s upon us today, we need a candidate who can move us forward—that’s Hillary," Carr wrote.
Garner, 43, died July 17 after officers with the New York Police Department stopped him for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes. When Garner refused to be placed under arrest, officers swarmed him and brought him to the ground. His death was ruled a homicide, but the officer who restrained him in a chokehold was not indicted by a Staten Island grand jury and argued he was using a different, department-approved takedown maneuver called "the seatbelt."
Clinton spoke about Garner's death at the Nov. 6 Democratic candidates forum on MSNBC, saying selling cigarettes illegally is wrong, but he didn't need to die over it.
"I still can’t get over that Eric Garner, in Staten Island in New York, he died from a chokehold," Clinton said.
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The Black Lives Matter movement is one of the main voices calling for police reform in light of Garner and others' deaths, and has become influential in the presidential campaign, especially among the Democratic candidates.
"We need to elect her, not just for us, but for our children, our grandchildren, and their children. We have to bring forth a legacy that will outlive us," Carr wrote Thursday, in a page urging readers to sign up for Clinton's newsletter.
