The daughter of Eric Garner paid her respects to the slain NYPD officers who were gunned down in Brooklyn over the weekend. Emerald Garner visited the New York Police Memorial yesterday to express her condolences to the families of Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos.
While talking to reporters, Emerald made it clear that her family isn’t anti-police. According to ABC News:
“I just had to come out and let their family know that we stand with them, and I’m going to send my prayers and condolences to all the families who are suffering through this tragedy,” Emerald Garner said. “I was never anti-police. Like I said before, I have family that’s in the NYPD that I’ve grown up around, family reunions and everything so my family you know, we’re not anti-police.
Garner – whose father Eric was placed in a chokehold and killed by an NYPD officer who was not indicted – believes the killing of the officers was not a race issue, but “a mental health crisis.”
“It didn’t have anything to do with race or anything—it was a mental health crisis and he was dealing with [it] personally and didn’t have the proper way to express his anger,” she said.
Ramos and Liu were on duty in their marked patrol cars on Saturday afternoon in Brooklyn when the officers were shot in the head by Ismaaiyl Brinsley. The 28-year-old fatally shot himself after killing the officers.
SOURCE: ABC | PHOTO CREDIT: Handout
