The assassination of two NYPD officers in their patrol car in Brooklyn earlier this month had been triggered by the death of Eric Garner, according to civil rights activist and MSNBC host Rev. Al Sharpton.
On Monday's "Politics Nation," MSNBC contributor and former Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania Ed Rendell initiated a discussion about how Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu would not have been fatally ambushed by gunman Ismaaiyl Brinsley on Dec. 20 if NYPD officers hadn't applied a chokehold to Garner in a widely circulated video, Red Flag News reported.
"How do you think the families of Officer Liu and Officer Ramos would have felt about a little less violence applied to that young man?" Rendell asked. "And I'm not saying that there should have been arrests or not arrests, but if when he said, 'I can't breathe,' if they had stopped and let up on him, it's likely that Officer Liu and Officer Ramos would be alive today."
On July 17, at the request of local "minority business owners," police went to a location where Garner was known for selling cigarettes, UK MailOnline reported. In a widely circulated video, Officer Daniel Pantaleo can be seen grabbing unarmed Garner and fatally holding him in a banned chokehold maneuver as the man repeatedly says, "I can't breathe."
"Well, as you said, he's a crazy person. I don't think it has anything to do with the causes," Sharpton said. "But I think you trigger things... when you have people on the edge."
"You trigger things!" agreed Rendell. "There's no question. He said on his - on the internet, he said he was taking revenge for what happened to the young man. And so that's the type of thing that breeds mistrust and anger."
Meanwhile, Sharpton has also been in the headlines for criticizing the Ferguson grand jury's decision to not indict police officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of 18-year-old unarmed Michael Brown, where he claimed that the verdict was "an absolute blow" to the justice system, The Daily Caller reported.
"Let it be clear. We are dealing with the same attitudes in Ferguson right here in the city," Sharpton had said from his Harlem, New York office, while being joined by Garner's family.
