Mayor de Blasio says Eric Garner’s death must be the “opening of a door to something better.” He’s calling for efforts to retrain police and repair relationships between the NYPD and community members. Danielle Elias reports.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan is bringing together the mayor and religious leaders for a roundtable meeting spawned by the death of Eric Garner, the 43-year-old father who died on Staten Island after being put into a chokehold during an arrest last month.
Mayor de Blasio asked Dolan to host Wednesday's meeting to help a city gripped by protests and distrust of the police in some predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods in the wake of Garner's death.
The medical examiner ruled Garner's death a homicide due to neck compression from a chokehold.
The meeting includes Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim leaders.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who has been a fiery critic of the NYPD in the wake of Garner's death, is also attending.
Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan announced Tuesday he's convening a special grand jury to consider criminal charges in the case.
In addition to running the National Action Network, Sharpton is a talk show host on MSNBC, which is owned by WNBC's parent company, NBCUniversal.
