Jeff Sessions & Justice Department To Continue Investigation Into Death Of Eric Garner

Jeff Sessions & Justice Department To Continue Investigation Into Death Of Eric Garner

Attorney General Jeff Sessions told civil rights activists Tuesday that the Justice Department will continue to review the 2014 death of an unarmed Long Island man at the hands of police, activists said. Liberal advocates have been worried that the Justice Department, under the Trump administration, would drop its investigation into the killing of Eric Garner, who died after a chokehold arrest for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes. Rev. Al Sharpton, who was in a meeting Tuesday between Sessions and civil rights leaders, said the attorney general indicated the agency would press on with its review.

“A man was on video, choked to death by a police officer, after saying 11 times, ‘I can’t breathe,’” Sharpton, who heads the National Action Network, told reporters during a press conference after the meeting. “I asked him to move forward aggressively on that case,” he added. “He said that he did not [yet] look at that case, [but] he committed to us that he would look into the Eric Garner case.” Such a move would be welcome news to New York lawmakers, who on multiple occasions pressed Justice Department leaders under former President Barack Obama to bring charges in the case, fearing it would be dismissed under the Trump White House. Sharpton said he also singled out the killing of Walter Scott as another case activists are monitoring. The unarmed black man was shot as he fled a police officer in North Charleston, S.C., after being pulled over for a broken tail light in 2015. “We want to see that go to trial and in no way [have] a backpedaling,” Sharpton said. Sessions, a former GOP senator from Alabama, met with civil rights leaders amid accusations that his track record on issues such as race relations, voting rights and criminal justice reform make him an unreliable figure in protecting the rights of minority groups. The critics, including leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus, are already bashing Sessions and the Justice Department for early steps taken by the Trump administration. Those include a decision to eliminate Obama’s order allowing transgender students to use school bathrooms that fit their gender identities and the move to back away from the Justice Department's opposition to strict voting requirements in Texas. The critics are also wary of Sessions because of decades-old allegations that he made racially insensitive statements as a U.S. attorney in Alabama in the 1980s, allegations that prompted a Republican-led Senate committee to reject Sessions' nomination for a federal judgeship in 1986. “We are deeply troubled by the steps already taken by the Attorney General to abdicate his responsibility to enforce civil rights laws affecting access to voting, oversight of troubled police departments, and the protection of LGBTQ individuals,” Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said in a statement after Tuesday’s meeting. Henderson said he left the meeting unconvinced that Sessions will fight for minorities as the nation’s top cop. “To our dismay, the Attorney General offered no commitment to ensure all of the nation’s civil rights laws are enforced and that people of color, women, language minorities, immigrants, individuals with disabilities, seniors, religious minorities, and LGBTQ communities will be protected from discrimination and violence,” he said. “The Attorney General must be above partisan politics and pursue justice on behalf of all Americans, especially the most marginalized in our society.” The other civil rights leaders attending the meeting included Kristen Clarke, head of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund; Melanie L. Campbell, who leads the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation; and Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League.

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