MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
What does justice look like five years after Eric Garner's death? Garner is the unarmed black man who died after a white New York police officer put him in a chokehold. Garner could be heard on video begging police not to touch him and saying over and over, I can't breathe. Yesterday, that police officer, Daniel Pantaleo, was fired. But Eric Garner's family says their fight goes on. His daughter Emerald Garner joins me on the line from New York.
Welcome.
EMERALD GARNER: Thank you.
KELLY: I want to start by asking your reaction to the decision by Police Commissioner James O'Neill to fire Daniel Pantaleo. I saw that you thanked him for, in your words, doing the right thing. Tell me what you meant.
GARNER: Well, my thanking him had a lot to do with the fact that we've had the grand jury and we've had the Department of Justice and we've had different avenues step in to make a decision as to whether Pantaleo was wrong and what he actually did to Eric Garner. So when I say thank you, I mean thank you for making the right choice and making a decision and showing us that you saw what we saw.
KELLY: Do you feel bitterness that this took five years before the decision was made to fire Pantaleo?
GARNER: You know, I felt a lot of frustration over the last five years. I felt a lot of anger knowing that my tax dollars was paying the murderer of my father. And to ultimately have fired from the police department and, you know, possibly reopening the case and bringing up the congressional hearing, that's what's bringing me a sense of relief.
KELLY: So I saw your grandmother, Eric Garner's mother, Gwen Carr quoted as saying the fight is not over. What is that fight now the Pantaleo's been fired?
GARNER: The Eric Garner Law is something that, you know, we're definitely pushing towards because that would basically solidify that the chokehold is illegal. Right not the chokehold is banned in New York City, and banned and illegal are definitely two different things. And once something becomes a legal, when you do it, you're going to be, like, prosecuted no matter what.
KELLY: So just to make sure that people are following here - you're explaining that the chokehold is banned by New York Police policy. It is not banned by New York law. And that is what the Eric Garner Law that you would like to see passed would do.
GARNER: Yes.
KELLY: I want to ask you about something that the president of the New York police union - this is Patrick Lynch - said following the news that Pantaleo had been fired. Lynch says that was the wrong move, that Pantaleo should not have been fired, that it was Police Commissioner O'Neill who should go. Let me play just a little bit of Mr. Lynch speaking yesterday. And he was speaking, I should say, straight to the commissioner.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PATRICK LYNCH: You sent this out. You made the policy. Quit, or be fired - not Officer Pantaleo. We were following the rules of the police department and the instructions from the chief of department's office.
KELLY: Emerald Garner, to that, what do you say? What's your reaction?
GARNER: I think the police union is very upset, and they can be upset because I've been upset for the past five years. And he crossed the line. And when you cross the line, you have to be penalized for your actions.
KELLY: May I just - understanding that nothing brings your dad back, a law with his name on it would be quite something. And I wonder if you would just speak to a moment to what that would mean to you and to your family.
GARNER: For me, that would mean that they would never be another Eric Garner. Another family would never have to go through what we go through. I don't expect for another officer to kill an unarmed black man. But that's, like, kind of the norm of what we live in right now. Like, every time you pick up your phone or you look on the TV, there's another one of us dying at the hands of the police.
So if we can have a law where a police officer will say, you know, I'm not going to be reckless and I'm not going to cross the line with a civilian, you know, that's when people will realize, when I do things, consequences happen to me whether I have a shield or not.
KELLY: That's Emerald Garner speaking to us from New York. Her father Eric Garner died in 2014. Emerald Garner, thank you very much for your time, and I am sorry for your loss.
GARNER: Thank you. Have a great day. Thank you for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.