Eric Garner’s daughter Erica declared brain dead after heart attack
Reporting from New York — Doctors have listed the daughter of police chokehold victim Eric Garner as brain dead with no chance of recovery — five days after the mother of two suffered a massive heart attack.
Family members were being called early Thursday to Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn to say final goodbyes to Erica Garner, who became an outspoken critic of police brutality after her father’s death in 2014.
The 27-year-old firebrand remained on life support Thursday morning, said her mother, Esaw Snipes.
“She’s not gone; she’s brain dead,” Snipes said. “Physically she is still with us.”
Garner has been in a coma since Saturday, when an asthma attack triggered a heart attack.
The person running her popular Twitter account told Garner’s 35,000 followers Wednesday that a CAT scan revealed that she had suffered brain damage “from lack of oxygen while in cardiac arrest.”
The account refuted a “rest in peace” message from New York City Councilman Jumaane Williams, who prematurely reported her death.
“As we sent prayers up...so sorry to hear the news. RIP @es_snipes. That family still needs us #Garner,” Williams tweeted.
Eric Garner’s pleas of “I can’t breathe!” as he was put into a chokehold by Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo — a chokehold the NYPD had banned — helped spark the Black Lives Matter movement and spurred Erica Garner to become an advocate against police brutality.
When her son was born in August, she named him after her father.
She suffered her first heart attack shortly after the delivery, with doctors saying the pregnancy stressed her already enlarged heart.
Carrega and Tracy report for the New York Daily News.
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