Eric Garner's Widow Rejects Cop's Apology: "It Was A Modern-Day Lynching"

The widow of Eric Garner rejected the apology of the NYPD officer who put her husband into a fatal chokehold over the summer. "Hell no!" Esaw Garner said at a press conference at the National Action Network last night, when asked if she would accept Officer Daniel Pantaleo’s condolences. "The time for remorse would have been when my husband was yelling to breathe!"

Garner reiterated those sentiments in an interview on the Today Show this morning, which you can see below. She described her reaction upon learning that the grand jury would not bring charges against Pantaleo: "I started bawling. I started crying because it’s not fair. It’s not fair. What did they not see? How could they possibly not indict?" she said. "I felt hopeless, I felt like there was not another corner to turn, like there was nothing for me to fight for."

Pantaleo released a statement after the grand jury decision Wednesday, saying he prays for Garner's family and hopes they accept his condolences. "I became a police officer to help people and to protect those who can't protect themselves," he said. "It is never my intention to harm anyone, and I feel very bad about the death of Mr. Garner."

She added that she never really thought that Staten Island police or the district attorney were on her side: "Honestly, I think from the beginning I had no faith in Staten Island prosecutors," she told them. "I didn't have any kind of encouragement, I felt no remorse, I felt no compassion, no anything from Staten Island besides the people on Staten Island. But as far as the police and the DA, there was no sincerity from day one."

She was even more forceful with her words in an interview with NBC News: "There's no doubt in my mind or the mind of all the people out there in the world that what we saw in that video cannot be disputed," she said. "How they disputed it, I don't know. It was a modern-day lynching."

Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, told CBS that justice will only be served "when everyone who was involved in my son’s death that day stands accountable. Then I will feel like I was justified. That was so inhumane what they did to my son...No mother, no grandmother should have to ever go through the pain that we went through. It’s horrible."

Garner’s 19-year-old son, Eric Snipes, also spoke out, calling the decision “insane," adding, "The grand jury needs to come talk to me and tell me why they’re not indicting this guy."

Rev. Al Sharpton, who plans to lead a march in Washington on December 13th, laid the blame on state prosecutors who work "hand in hand with the local police. No amount of secret grand juries, with...prosecutors that put up evidence that we do not know, is going to stop people from raising the questions and demanding the answers."