The Chokehold Death of Eric Garner By NYPD in Staten Island, NY

“Yet they’re going to try to convince you that his inability to catch his breath was somehow his own fault,” I said. “And they’re going to expect you to buy right into it. You know why? Because they count on a large percentage of people seeing him as something less than human. They want you to view him as ‘the other’—as someone who isn’t like you.”

I leaned back in my chair, gesturing with my hands as if addressing a room full of listeners face-to-face.

“Look at the heavy-handed system we live in,” I said. “They’re hoping that enough of you are so worn down that you’ll just throw up your hands and say, ‘Hey, I guess I have no rights. I have no right to exist. I have no right to stand on a public street corner. I have no right to be in front of a store. I have no right to my own personal space. I have no right to go home to my wife and my kids.’ They want you to act like whatever they dictate is final because they’re the boss, like you work for them instead of the other way around. They want you to forget that your tax dollars pay their salaries.”

I set my mug down with a firm thud on the wooden desk.

“Reverend Lloyd Land, who said he knew Mr. Garner for years, described him as a peaceful, gentle giant,” I noted. “He believed that even if you slapped him in the face, he wouldn’t even slap you back. He wasn’t some street dealer. But the system wants you to believe that’s a complete lie. They want you to think the Reverend is just making excuses for him. Because to them, law enforcement could couldn’t possibly be at fault. How could they? They claim they love the communities they serve and protect so much.”

I scoffed, my voice dripping with biting sarcasm.

“Oh, they do it all out of love, don’t they?” I remarked. “It’s out of love that a man gets choked on a sidewalk. It’s out of love that someone gets shot down. It’s out of love that people get beaten until blood fills their lungs—just like what happened to Kelly Thomas out in California. It’s out of love when someone gets shot in the back. It’s out of love when somebody gets violated in a precinct bathroom. It’s all love, right? That’s the narrative they expect you to swallow.”

I leaned forward again, tapping my fingers on the desk to emphasize each point.

“While their internal investigations drag on, they want you to believe it’s totally fine for the involved officers to be sitting comfortably on administrative desk duty,” I said. “Still drawing a full paycheck, relaxing, drinking coffee at their desks until this whole media storm blows over. They want you to accept that as reasonable, as standard procedure, as justice.”

I looked straight into the camera lens, speaking with crisp intensity.

“Now, we can sit here and harbor resentment toward one another over the color of our skin,” I stated. “We can point fingers over ethnic backgrounds, or judge each other by the clothes we wear. We can let ourselves be fractured over music, religion, or political party lines. And trust me, the authority structure is banking on that exact outcome. They count on us being divided over trivial things because that’s what we’ve historically been conditioned to do.”

I raised a single finger.

“But if we unite—if we stand shoulder to shoulder and say, ‘No, we are standing together on this one’—then they won’t be able to sweep this under the rug,” I declared. “They won’t get away with it the way they did with Kelly Thomas, who lost his life just for pulling on a car door handle to get some clothes. They won’t get away with it like they did with Anthony Baez, who accidentally hit a patrol car with a football. And they won’t get away with it by claiming Mr. Garner was merely selling loose cigarettes without a permit.”

I leaned over the console, my voice steadying with determination.

“If we stand up, if we unite, and if we refuse to let minor differences divide us, things change,” I urged. “Look at the footage—this is a heavy-handed, militarized state we’re living under. And the only way it keeps running smoothly is if we stay terrified and divided. If we allow ourselves to split apart over petty disagreements, we play right into their hands.”

I leaned in closer to the mic, softening my delivery to deliver the strategy.

“We can take control back—not through senseless violence, but by leveraging the one thing that always commands absolute attention in the United States: money and political leverage,” I explained. “If we reclaim economic clout and institutional leverage, we can reclaim our streets. We can reform law enforcement. We can secure our constitutional rights as American citizens. By withholding their funding and political influence, we hit them where it actually matters. That’s how we win.”

I raised my palm toward the screen.

“We win when we stand up and say, ‘No, Mr. Mayor—if you don’t hold that commissioner accountable and reform that police department, you won’t see another term in office. Do you hear me?'” I continued, my voice ringing clear. “And we say to the commissioner, ‘If you don’t clean up that precinct in Staten Island and handle this properly, you won’t have a job anymore, simple as that.’ That’s how we take a stand.”

I paused, reflecting for a moment before sharing a bit of my own story.

“Look, I’ve made my share of mistakes,” I admitted candidly. “I’ve worked jobs in Corporate America that I knew deep down weren’t right for me, environments where I knew I’d never truly fit in because I wasn’t the kind of guy who played corporate politics. I saw shady company cultures where people only promoted their close friends and sycophants. And for a long time, I just sat there, sucking it up, telling myself, ‘Maybe I’ll win them over. Maybe I’ll change their minds.'”

I shook my head slowly.

“Every six months, every year, time just kept ticking away,” I recalled. “They weren’t changing, but I was. I was getting soft. I started losing my core identity, trying to force myself into a mold they wanted me to fit into. But deep down, I knew I could never truly be that person because it wasn’t who I was. It was never going to work out.”

I leaned back, remembering the turning point.

“Eventually, I looked around one day at the people I was working with, and I realized we were all utterly miserable,” I said. “None of us liked what we were doing, but we kept doing it because we had bills to pay, kids to raise, and families to support. We just didn’t see another way out. But finally, I broke free. I took a different path.”

I brought my hands together on the desk.

“We can win this struggle, but we aren’t going to win it by staying inside an abusive system trying to change it quietly from within while playing by their rules,” I argued. “We have to change it from the top down. You know how you do that? You change the people in charge. We push to change the Police Commissioner. If that doesn’t work, we change the Mayor. If that doesn’t work, we change the Governor. That’s how you restructure the system.”

I pointed toward the camera to deliver a sharp warning.

“Don’t listen to people telling you to go out there and resort to physical violence, getting yourselves shot or engaging in clashes that only lead to more loss of life,” I cautioned. “That only ends with more of our people in graves. Never take advice from someone preaching violence unless he’s the very first one picking up a weapon and leading the charge himself—and trust me, that never lasts anyway. The state will just deploy heavier tactical force, and more young people—more people like Kelly Thomas, Eric Garner, and Anthony Baez—will end up dead. It solves nothing, and it hands the system an easy victory.”

I leaned into the mic to break down the media’s playbook.

“When clashes happen, they turn around and use the media machine to win over public opinion,” I explained. “They bombard the news with talk about how law enforcement has the most dangerous job in the world, and people buy right into it—completely overlooking the tragic reality of how frequently citizens lose their lives during routine stops.”

I tapped the desk once more.

“We take control back by stripping away their institutional protection,” I emphasized. “We target their leadership, their positions, and their authority. That’s how we win this fight. And I’m not saying this just to beat my chest, or to talk tough about grabbing weapons and going out into the streets to cause harm. That’s just emotional talking, and emotional talking doesn’t produce real results.”

I took a breath, letting the tension ease slightly.

“Once everybody calms down, we can talk about what we can actually achieve together,” I said softly. “Let’s talk about real, tangible goals. But we can’t work together effectively if people are sitting around saying, ‘Let’s target this group,’ or ‘Forget about that group.’ Look, there are good White folks we need on our team. There are good Latino folks we need on our team. And guess what? There are good Black folks we need on our team. We need everyone—Latino, Asian, Black, White—every single human being, neighbor, countryman, and citizen working together on this.”

I lowered my voice, laying out the stakes.

“If we don’t—if we fail to unite—then the system wins, and we continue to suffer the consequences,” I warned. “We continue to see fathers taken away from daughters and sons, husbands ripped away from wives, and love replaced with anger, frustration, pain, grief, and bitterness.”

I stood up slightly, leaning over the microphone with resolute focus.

“What I’m proposing is that we systematically strip away their executive positions, their seniority, their public paychecks, their institutional authority, and their immunity,” I declared. “That is how we win. But we have to stand united. We cannot let petty differences divide us. This is a heavy-handed system, and its leaders pray every day that we remain divided. That’s how they’ve stayed in control, and that’s how they’ll keep winning as long as this is viewed as only one community’s issue.”

I paused, letting the final words sink in.

“When a tragedy happens to someone from another background, if we just say, ‘Well, at least it wasn’t one of us,’ that’s the trap,” I cautioned. “That’s what keeps us divided. We win by demanding accountability from the top officials who allow officers to walk into our neighborhoods, our cities, and our states and strip away our constitutional rights. We take their positions of power. That’s how we win.”

I looked directly into the lens.

“If you don’t believe that, and you think you’ve got a better idea—well, tell me, what’s your plan?” I challenged. “I say we band together and work as one, or we suffer and face brutality alone. And if we let that happen, they win.”

I softened my tone, lowering my head in respect.

“My deepest condolences go out to Mrs. Garner, as well as the friends and family who lost ‘Big E,'” I said quietly. “He loved sports—loved watching football and basketball. His wife mentioned that Eric wasn’t perfect; at night, he had a soft spot for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and ate too many Oreos. And man, she said he could snore like a bear.”

I let out a soft sigh.

“Tonight, she wonders if she’ll ever be able to sleep again,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper, “because she doesn’t think she can sleep without the sound of her bear snoring in the room.”

I looked up one last time, meeting the gaze of the camera.

“So, I ask you,” I said gently, “what do you want to do?”