Money alone can’t fix injustice.
That’s the message Esaw Garner is sending after rejecting the city of New York’s $5 million settlement offer in the death of her husband, Eric Garner.
[ Related: Eric Garner’s Family Honors Slain NYPD Officer ]
Eric, of course, was killed by officers of the New York City Police Department last July — in fact, one year ago on Friday — after being stopped for selling cigarettes on the street.
The officers, while subduing Garner, choked him and those actions led to his death. Garner’s haunting, famous refrain — “I can’t breathe” — was memorialized during protests in the ensuing weeks.
The offer from the city comes at a time where Esaw must decide whether to file suit, or accept a settlement; the statute of limitations on filing a lawsuit will run out Friday on the one-year anniversary.
Sources close to the Garner family allege that their attorney, Jonathan Moore, has urged the family to accept the settlement from the NYPD, and instead sue EMTs from ​Richmond University Medical Center, who were video taped failing to give 43-year-old Eric CPR as he lay dying.
Regardless of what Esaw and the Garner family decide in the coming days, though, nothing will bring back Eric.
[Image via Alberto Reyes/WENN.]