Gwen Carr, whose son Eric Garner was killed by an NYPD officer, is surrounded by supporters as she speak during a news conference outside City Hall, in New York. Mary Altaffer/AP/REX Shutterstock
“Ineffectual official responses are a primary characteristic of police brutality cases generally. Going back decades we see the same pattern, over and over. An unstable police officer, who often has a long (but, illogically, not public) record of misuse of force, wounds or kills a civilian, usually a black or Hispanic male.”
“Most of these cases go unnoticed by the press, but in the ones that do capture headlines, public interest is intense but brief. From there, the pursuit of justice heads down two avenues, civil and criminal.”