Eric Garner’s mother says watching George Floyd plead ‘I can’t breathe’ before dying in police custody was like having ‘déjà vu all over again’

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Protesters gather at the scene where George Floyd, an unarmed black man, was pinned down by a police officer kneeling on his neck before later dying in hospital in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. May 26, 2020.REUTERS/Eric Miller

The mother of Eric Garner said watching the video of George Floyd dying in Minneapolis on Monday was like having “déjà vu all over again.”

Floyd, who died on Monday after a Minneapolis police officer was seen on video restraining him by putting a knee on his neck, repeated the same words Garner did before his death: “I can’t breathe.” Garner died after he was held in an apparent chokehold by a New York police officer in 2014.

“It’s like a reoccurring nightmare,” Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, told NBC News.

Garner said “I can’t breathe” 11 times after Daniel Pantaleo, a plainclothes NYPD officer, pulled him down to the sidewalk after accusing him of selling loose cigarettes. The incident was caught on video.

Garner later died at a hospital, and a grand jury declined to indict Pantaleo, sparking nationwide Black Lives Matter demonstrations.

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Eric Garnervia Twitter

Floyd died on Monday after police put him in handcuffs while responding to reports of forgery at a Minneapolis grocery store.

Floyd was then pinned down on the grown by a police officer for nearly eight minutes, during which he became unresponsive. Police said he died later, after an ambulance transported him to a nearby hospital, but Minneapolis’s fire department said he was dead by the time he was moved to the ambulance.

“I don’t see any justification,” Carr said of Floyd’s death. “To put your knee on someone’s neck, you are obstructing their breathing. That is completely a no-no.”

Four Minnesota police officers have been fired following Floyd’s death, and the FBI, city, and state officials are all investigating the incident.

Minnesota Mayor Jacob Frey has called for charges to be issued against Derek Chauvin, the officer who had his knee on Floyd’s neck.

“I’ve wrestled, more than anything else over the last 36 hours, with one fundamental question: Why is the man who killed George Floyd not in jail?” Frey said at a press conference on Wednesday. “If you had done it or I had done it, we would be behind bars right now. I cannot come up with a good answer to that question.”

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Gwen Carr, mother of Eric Garner speaks during a press conference outside Police Headquarters in New York, U.S., August 19, 2019.REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

Frey later added: “We watched for five whole excruciating minutes as a white officer firmly pressed his knee into the neck of an unarmed, handcuffed black man. I saw no threat. I saw nothing that would signal that this kind of force was necessary. By the way, that particular technique that was used is not authorize by the MPD, it is not something that officers are trained in on and should not be used period.”

Ben Crump, a civil rights attorney representing Floyd’s family, is also calling for murder charges to be filed against the police officers involved.

“The plan is to make sure these officers are charged with the murder of George Floyd,” Crump told The New York Times. “When you really think about it, it was nine minutes that he begged for his life while this officer had his knee in his throat, had his knee in his neck.”