The hospital that dispatched paramedics to treat Eric Garner, who died after being placed in a police chokehold, has agreed to pay his family $1 million, reports The New York Times.
Video of Garner’s arrest shows an officer putting him in a chokehold as Garner yells, “I can’t breathe!” His words became a protest slogan for the Black Lives Matter movement. When emergency responders from Richmond University Medical Center arrived, they did not perform CPR.
According to The New York Times:
When a bystander asked why they were not trying to resuscitate him, an officer said it was because Mr. Garner was breathing.
“The E.M.T.s did not conduct the appropriate examination” of Mr. Garner at the scene and “failed to provide him with the necessary lifesaving procedures,” according to the court documents.
Hospital records, also filed in the documents, said Mr. Garner went into cardiac arrest on the stretcher. The medics tried to resuscitate him in the ambulance and doctors again performed CPR at the emergency room. By 4:15 p.m., he had no pulse, and he was declared dead at 4:34 p.m.
A Staten Island grand jury later cleared Daniel Pantaleo, the police officer who placed Garner in the chokehold, of any charges, despite the medical examiner’s conclusion that Garner’s death was homicide.
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