The death of Eric Garner. Photo via The Daily News.
Councilman Andy King speaking at the National Action Network, Harlem, in March.
Yesterday, in interviews with The Bronx Chronicle and Bronx Talk with Gary Axelbank, Councilman Andy King, the co-chair of the Black, Asian and Latino Caucus, spoke out about the rhetoric that has come from the city’s Police Department, police union, and other affiliated individuals who have spoke out in defense of the officers in question who were responsible for the death of Eric Garner, 43, of Staten Island.
He stated that you “wouldn’t treat a dog that way, you wouldn’t treat an animal like that” describing the video that shows officers visibily pushing the deceased to the ground and firmly pressing his head to concrete while exclaiming loudly and clearly that he could not breath for an extended period of time, pleading over and over again for his life. The officers continued to kill him, not realizing they were killing him. Others at the scene also did nothing.
On last night’s BronxTalk, panelist Augustine Aloia served as the de facto flack for the police department, a retired NYPD sargeant from Westchester with graduate degrees from John Jay and George Washington University who teaches in the area of criminal justice at Monroe College, where Axelbank serves as spokesperson and head of the college’s public communications. Councilman King challenged Aloia for an attitude of “nonchalance” when addressing the life of Eric Garner, and this journalist wholehartedly agrees.
King has implored Mayor Bill De Blasio to make sure a long drawn out process does not commence in next few weeks with an adversarial relationship between the NYPD’s union and community leaders and electeds. but that proper measures are taken swiftly, mentioning the need to consider a family that needs to heal as well as a community who has lost trust and faith in the NYPD over time.
Yesterday, De Blasio expressed a desire to heal a wound that has been going on for over a decade, suggesting the Bloomberg administration enabled a growing social divide between law enforcement and communites of color in the city. “…For much of the previous 12 years, there was a growing tension and a growing disconnect between police and community all over our city. And that is not an acceptable state of affairs,” said the Mayor. “I came here to address these issues, and it is my responsibility to do so and I intend to do so. And we’re making a series of changes that I think will be felt not only in the short run, but that will have a profound impact on the city in the long term.”
“We still have a racial and predjudicial divide. They won’t come out publicly and say it, but through their actions tell it.” said Councilman King, in an interview yesterday with the Bronx Chronicle. (You can check out the interview here.)
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