All Rev'd Up: Overdue Justice For Eric Garner

Police Chokehold Death — Eric Garner Jr., left, the son of chokehold victim Eric Garner, listens as Rev. Al Sharpton, right, founder of the National Action Network (NAN), speak during a news conference after NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill announced his decision to fire NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo for the 2014 death of Eric Garner, Monday Aug. 19, 2019, at NAN headquarters in New York.

Hannah Uebele is a producer for Under the Radar with Callie Crossley and previously worked as associate producer for Boston Public Radio. She graduated from Tufts University with a B.S. in English and Environmental Studies. She's a proud Delawarean but has found herself saying "wicked" more and more often, so the Bostonian metamorphosis is well underway.Contact: hannah_uebele@wgbh.org

August 19, 2019

New York City Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo was fired from the department on Monday, five years after holding Eric Garner in a chokehold that was partly blamed for Garner's death in police custody.

Reverends Irene Monroe and Emmett G. Price III joined Boston Public Radio on Monday to discuss this decision and what it means for similar cases moving forward.

"The firing of Officer Pantaleo was a huge move in the right direction. It was long overdue, and thank God for those who had protested, including Eric Garner's family, for years to press forward for this," Price said.

"It sets a model. It's not only morally right thing to do, it is now lawfully the right thing to do," Monroe said. She added, "It'll begin to bring some healing as a nation that the way in which we police black bodies is wrong."

Monroe is a syndicated religion columnist and the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail and a Visiting Researcher in the Religion and Conflict Transformation Program at Boston University School of Theology. Price is Professor of Worship, Church & Culture and Founding Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of the Black Christian Experience at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
Together they host the All Rev’d Up podcast, produced by WGBH.