Four different parties have requested the release of the minutes of the grand jury that declined to indict the cop who killed Eric Garner. Daniel Donovan, the prosecutor who handled the case, is fighting the motion.
Demonstrators stand outside the Staten Island courthouse on January 5.
Shannon Stapleton / Reuters
NEW YORK CITY — Four different parties, including civil rights groups and a newspaper, have asked the Staten Island branch of the New York State Supreme Court to release the minutes of the grand jury that declined to indict the police officer who killed Eric Garner with a chokehold in 2014.
The first hearing of the special proceedings took place on Monday before Richmond County Supreme Court Judge William Garnett. Oral arguments for the case are scheduled for Jan. 29.
Grand jury proceedings are usually kept secret, but New York City's public advocate, the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Legal Aid Society, and the New York Post are all arguing that an exception should be made in the Garner case.
Daniel Donovan, the Staten Island District Attorney who led the grand jury proceedings, is fighting to keep the documents secret. Donovan's office did not respond to requests for comment. The Republican prosecutor is considering running for the U.S. Congress. He has already been endorsed by at least one police union.
Garner, who was black, was killed on July 17 last year, after New York Police Department Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who is white, used a chokehold to subdue him while trying to arrest him for selling loose cigarettes. The city's medical examiner ruled Garner's death a homicide. The whole incident was captured on amateur video, becoming a symbol for what some call police brutality.
District Attorney Donovan convened a grand jury to decide whether to charge Pantaleo with a crime. After nine weeks of hearings and deliberations, the jury opted to clear Pantaleo of the charges.
The decision not to indict Pantaleo sparked large scale protests similar to the ones seen in Ferguson, Missouri, after a separate grand jury made a similar choice not to indict another white police officer, Darren Willson, who had also killed an unarmed black man, Michael Brown. A juror in the Brown case is suing the prosecutor in charge to lift a ban that prevents her from commenting publicly on the proceedings.
LINK: New York City Police Force To Be Retrained In Wake Of Eric Garner Case
LINK: An Anatomy Of an Eric Garner Protest
from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/1DqlXe7
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