HollyMatkinBy Holly Matkin and Sandy Malone
Brooklyn, NY – Activist Erica Garner, the 27-year-old daughter of Black Lives Matter icon Eric Garner, died Saturday morning.
Erica suffered an asthma-induced heart attack on Dec. 23, and was placed on life support. Her cardiac arrest caused a lack of oxygen that led to significant brain damage, and she never regained consciousness, CNN reported.
A representative for Garner, who has been tweeting from her verified Twitter account
“Out of respect to Erica please do not request comment if the journalist is not Black,” Garner’s account posted.
There was immediate blowback for the tweet.
“Those who knew erica call this post a disrespect to her and her legacy,” ABC anchor Bill Ritter tweeted in response to the request.
From the beginning of her activism after her father’s death, Garner said she believed she lost her father because of police brutality, and said that it was not a racial matter.
“This is not a black and white issue. This is a national crisis,” Garner told CNN in 2014.
But the person running Garner’s “official” Twitter account seemed to have no respect for anyone who wasn’t black..
And Twitter users clapped back at what they called a “racist” tweet.
The exact identity of whomever is posting to Garner’s Twitter account could not be verified, but the poster introduced herself on Christmas Eve in a tweet as “one of Ericas workers.”
It’s assumed that the same person was tweeting from Garner’s verified account on Dec. 26, when they falsely accused the New York Police Department (NYPD) of removing her family and friends from her hospital room.
The dramatic posts began at 6:05 a.m., and claimed “#NYPD cleared me out of the ICU leaving Erica BY HERSELF WITH NO EXPLANATION … We are at woodhull hospital. They are supposed to be bringing her out of her coma in less than an hour and the # NYPD cleared her support from the floor with no explanation.”
The poster said that she didn’t trust NYPD, and called on followers to activate.
There was only one problem in the escalating hospital drama – NYPD said there was no police presence at Garner’s hospital room.
NYPD’s Public Information Office said that whatever what taking place at the hospital involved hospital security, and not NYPD.
“The NYPD was not involved in any shape or form,” NYPD Detective Ahmed Nasser told Blue Lives Matter.
Garner was the oldest daughter of Eric Garner, who died after resisting arrest in police custody in 2014. The Black Lives Matter battle cry of “I can’t breathe” resulted from the video of her father’s arrest by the NYPD.
Her father’s autopsy report showed no damage to any area of Eric Garner’s neck, and it was determined that he died of a medical emergency induced by officers who were arresting him. The medical examiner declared it was a homicide. A New York Grand Jury declined to indict on any criminal charges.
In the wake of her father’s death, Garner became a major force behind protests against police brutality and in support of racial equality.
She gave birth to her second child in August, and her mother, Esaw Snipes, said that Garner had a difficult pregnancy and birth, and learned she had heart problems during the pregnancy.