Three words still haunt Esaw Garner six years after her husband Eric Garner was killed by a New York Police Department officer during an arrest for selling loose cigarettes. Those same three words rang in her ears again Tuesday night.
"I can't breathe," were the words Eric Garner repeated 11 times while Officer Daniel Pantaleo held him around his neck on the sidewalk in a chokehold. This time, the words were coming from another African American man – 46-year-old security guard George Floyd, a Houston native and St. Louis Park, Minnesota, resident who died while being restrained by a police officer.
"It was like watching my husband die all over again," Esaw Garner told me during a phone interview Wednesday afternoon. "It was horrifying."
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