How Eric Garner’s Murder Exposes The Grimness of Police Brutality

When Eric Garner is mentioned, it’s hard not to immediately summon the viral images of the Black man who was murdered by a White cop, on the streets of New York City for reasons that can’t be validated.

Officer Daniel Pantaleo, claims that he was attempting to restrain Garner, and as with most cases that resemble this one, the emphasis for defense is aligned with the exaggerated physicality of the victim, and how the only option is to overpower until the suspect is out of breath and the worst case scenario occurs.

That’s exactly what occurred in October 2018, with Nigerian-American and Bay Area resident Chinedu Okobi, who was accosted by a gang of sheriff’s deputies, after he was reportedly wondering through traffic on the streets of Millbrae. It’s not clear if the officers were trained enough to recognize Okobi’s fragile mental state, but even if they were aware, it’s obvious that they were unwilling to take that vital detail into consideration during the violent encounter that led to his death.

Okobi’s sister who is a marketing executive for Facebook later confirmed that her brother did suffer from mental illness, and the footage that captured the ill-fated encounter depicted the sheriff’s deputies forcibly trying to get a disoriented man to comply with orders that he’s unable to…