New York City

Eric Garner's Activist Daughter, Erica Garner, Suffered Brain Damage During Asthma-Induced Heart Attack: Family

Her mother says her cardiac arrest was triggered by an asthma attack

What to Know

  • Erica Garner, the activist daughter of Eric Garner, has brain damage after going into cardiac arrest on Saturday, her family says
  • Eric Garner was killed in 2014 after being put into a chokehold by NYPD officers stopping him for selling loose cigarettes
  • Erica Garner has become an outspoke advocate against police brutality in the years following her father's death

Erica Garner, the eldest daughter of the New York City man killed in a police chokehold in a 2014 case that sparked nationwide protests, suffered "major brain damage from a lack of oxygen" during an asthma-triggered heart attack earlier this month. 

The family of Eric Garner's 27-year-old activist daughter said in a message posted to her Twitter account that the brain damage was revealed Wednesday in the results of a CT scan following the medical episode that left her in a medically induced coma on Saturday. 

"Please continue to pray hard for Erica and pray for her family and kids just as much," the family said in the tweet Wednesday evening.

Her mother, Esaw Snipes-Garner, said her daughter's cardiac arrest was triggered by an asthma attack.

Snipes-Garner said her daughter suffered her first heart attack not long after giving birth to a baby boy in August. Doctors said Erica Garner's pregnancy had put a strain on her heart, which was later found to be enlarged.

Her father, Eric Garner, died after a white police officer put the man, who is black, in a chokehold while arresting him on Staten Island in 2014. Erica Garner became a vocal advocate against police brutality after video of the chokehold — in which Eric Garner cried out repeatedly "I can't breathe!" — was posted online.

Asthma also affected her father. While the medical examiner determined Eric Garner's death to be a result of neck compression from the police chokehold, the autopsy report cited asthma, obesity and heart disease as contributing factors. Eric Garner's death was ruled a homicide.

A grand jury opted not to indict the officer seen on video administering the chokehold, a tactic prohibited under NYPD rules, prompting massive protests in New York City and in other cities around the country.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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