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Video: Jon Stewart Furious After Eric Garner Decision, "I Honestly Don't Know What To Say"
By
Jen Chung
Published Dec 4, 2014
Modified Dec 4, 2014
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By
Jen Chung
Published Dec 4, 2014
Modified Dec 4, 2014
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Sharing the same outrage that many felt after an NYPD officer was not indicted for choking Eric Garner to death, a disgusted Jon Stewart appeared on The Daily Show last night. He said, "I honestly don't know what to say. If comedy is tragedy plus time, I need more fucking time. But I would really settle for less fucking tragedy to be honest with you."
Stewart continued, "We are definitely not living in a post-racial society, and I can imagine there are a lot of people out there wondering how much of a society we're living in at all. I don't know what to say. It just happened, so I have not had a chance to digest it."
He also pointed out there's video with Garner's death, whereas with Michael Brown's death in Ferguson, Missouri, there were conflicting witness accounts and forensics, "None of the ambiguities of the Ferguson case exist here in the Staten Island case... the guy's not acting threatening, and we know that not through witness testimony, unreliable bystanders, but because we are fucking watching it."
Eric Garner was killed in July when police officer Daniel Pantaleo put him in a chokehold on Staten Island. A group of police officers had approached Garner, who was unarmed, because he was suspected of selling loose cigarettes. A video showed Garner arguing with the police, swatting their hands away and saying, "Don’t touch me, please."
Pantaleo put him in a chokehold while other officers struggled to pull him to the ground and get his arms behind his back. Garner, an asthmatic, can be heard repeatedly saying, "I can't breathe." The Medical Examiner's office later determined Garner's death was a homicide.
Stewart ended the segment with a loud, "FUCKKKKKK!"
Tagged
daily show
eric garner
Jon Stewart
racial injustice
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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