Eric Garner Widow and Filmmaker Talk Police Protests: Justice "Exists Only on Film"
Last year, director Roee Messinger debuted his film American Trial: The Eric Garner Story at the New York Film Festival, revealing his ambitious project — part documentary, part unscripted history — which imagines what could have happened if a grand jury had indicted NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo in Garner's death. Garner died in 2014 after Pantelo placed him in a forbidden chokehold, with his final words, "I can't breathe," caught on video— an eerily similar scenario to the May police killing of George Floyd, who also said “I can’t breathe” as a Minneapolis officer kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for several minutes.