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 Mostly peaceful protests sprang up on Wednesday evening throughout
Manhattan, including at Grand Central Terminal, Times Square and
near Rockefeller Center, after the panel opted not to indict the
officer, Daniel Pantaleo.
Police reported about 30 arrests by mid-evening, but declined to
provide updated figures overnight.
The U.S. Justice Department said it was investigating whether the
civil rights of the dead man, 43-year-old father of six Eric Garner,
had been violated.
Garner was accused of illegally selling cigarettes on a sidewalk
when Pantaleo put him in a chokehold from behind and tackled him
with the help of other officers. Police said he had resisted arrest.
The city's medical examiner said police officers had killed Garner
by compressing his neck and chest, and ruled the death a homicide,
adding that Curtis's asthma and obesity had contributed to his
death.
 The encounter on Staten Island was captured on a video that spread
over the Internet and fueled a debate about how U.S. police use
force, particularly against minorities.
The video shows Garner arguing with police, saying, "Please leave me
alone," before Pantaleo puts him in a chokehold. With officers
holding him down, Garner pleads with them, saying repeatedly, "I
can't breathe."
The grand jury's decision poses the biggest challenge yet for New
York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who took office in January promising to
repair relations between black New Yorkers and the police
department.
FERGUSON SHOOTING
Last week, the city of St. Louis saw rioting, burning and looting
after a grand jury in Missouri declined to prosecute a white
policeman who shot dead the unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in
the suburb of Ferguson.
By contrast, the New York protests were civil. Police allowed
demonstrators to block traffic briefly before coaxing them to move
on. Marchers snaked through the streets for hours, chanting and
bumping up against throngs of tourists.
One group brought traffic on the West Side Highway along the Hudson
River to a standstill. Later, a few hundred demonstrators crossed a
bridge into Brooklyn.
In one of several "die-ins", demonstrators lay on the pavement
silently about a block from where the Christmas tree lighting
ceremony was under way at Rockefeller Center.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters in Washington that
the Justice Department, which is already probing the circumstances
of the Missouri shooting, would also examine the Garner case, as
well as the local inquiry into it.
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Chokeholds are prohibited by New York police regulations, but the
Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, the municipal police union, said
the officers involved in the Garner incident had acted within the
law.
Keiha Souley, 35, was driving his taxi cab on Broadway when
protesters blocked traffic, and said he did not mind the delay.
"You've got to stand up sometime," he said.
Hundreds of protesters also marched in other cities including
Washington D.C. and Oakland, California.
On Staten Island, near the place where Garner was apprehended, black
40-year-old banker Daniel Skelton complained: "A black man's life
just don't matter in this country."
Garner's stepfather Benjamin Carr, also at the scene, called for
calm. "We don’t want no Fergusons here," he said. "All we want is
peace."
Pantaleo expressed his condolences to Garner's family in a
statement, saying: "It is never my intention to harm anyone and I
feel very bad about the death of Mr. Garner."
But Garner's widow Esaw Garner told a news conference: "There's
nothing that him or his prayers or anything else will make me feel
any different. No I, don't accept his apologies."
(Additional reporting by Zachary Goelman, Frank McGurty, Jonathan
Allen, Mica Rosenberg, Daniel Bases, Robert MacMillan, David Ingram,
Ellen Wulfhorst, Andrew Chung and Mimi Dwyer in New York, Roberta
Rampton and Aruna Viswanatha in Washington; Writing by Ross Colvin,
Dan Burns and Frank McGurty; Editing by Leslie Adler and Ken Wills)
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