Dec. 25 (UPI) — Erica Garner, whose father Eric died in a chokehold by a New York Police Department officer three years ago, is on life support after a heart attack, family members said.
Erica Garner, the 27-year-old member of two, was in a coma in a Brooklyn hospital, family members told the New York Daily News.
Esaw Snipes-Garner told the newspaper her daughter’s condition was grave but she “is still with us. She’s fighting.”
“So my sister had another heart attack last night and she’s in critical condition,” Erica’s sister Emerald Snipes wrote on Facebook. “I just left the hospital and it’s not looking good … I pray she makes it she has two little ones to live for.”
Emerald Snipes described her family’s ordeal.
“Don’t even feel like Christmas but I gotta fake smile for my baby,” Snipes posted on Facebook.
“Erica better get better soon. She get on my last nerve but I’d rather fight with my sister then to lose her.”
Erica is the mother of an 8-year-old daughter and a boy in August, Snipes-Garner said. The boy was named after her father.
Doctors said the pregnancy had put a strain on her heart, which doctors discovered was enlarged, her mother said.
Erica’s first cardiac arrest was a few months ago, Esaw Snipes-Garner said.
Erica’s foster mother, Tanya Goode, told the Daily News while leaving the Brooklyn hospital: “Erica is on life support. She can’t breathe on her own. So, she’s not doing well.”
Erica Garner became a victim’s advocate after her father died. In 2014, he was placed in a chokehold after clashing with police over the alleged sale of untaxed cigarettes on Staten Island.
She criticized former President Barack Obama for the Justice Department’s slow investigation of the killing.
A Staten Island grand jury declined to indict the officer, Daniel Pantaleo. In September, the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board recommended the NYPD discipline Pantaleo because he used a banned chokehold while trying to arrest Garner, 43.
