US Civil Rights Leader Announces March in Washington Over Garner Ruling

MOSCOW, December 4 (Sputnik) – Rev. Al Sharpton, a prominent US civil rights activist, has called for a march in Washington DC on December 13 following a New York grand jury decision not to press charges against Daniel Pantaleo, a police officer, who asphyxiated African-American Eric Garner earlier this year.

"A week from this Saturday, Dec. 13, we are having a national march in Washington, DC where we are calling for the Justice Department to take this case and the case in Ferguson and the case in Cleveland," Sharpton said, as quoted by Business Insider. "It is time for a national march to deal with a national crisis," he said during a press conference with Garner’s family.

"How many people have to die before people understand this is not an illusion, this is a reality that America has got to come to terms with. And no amount of secret grand juries with local prosecutors that put up evidence that we do not know is going to stop people from raising the questions and demanding the answers," Sharpton said.

Garner, who was asthmatic, died from suffocation in July after being put in a chokehold by police officer Daniel Pantaleo. A bystander recorded a video of the police arresting Garner, who sold untaxed cigarettes, and of Pantaleo later choking the man to death, as Garner cried out "I can't breathe, I can't breathe."

The video went viral online.

Wednesday's grand jury decision on Garner follows another similar case in Ferguson, Missouri, where African-American teenager Michael Brown was killed by a white police officer in August. That killing and a similar verdict by a grand jury not to indict officer Darren Wilson last week set off nationwide protests and renewed debate over police brutality.

On Tuesday, Holder announced that the US Justice Department was completing its work on new law enforcement guidelines, aimed at ending racial profiling in the United States.