I Can't Breathe

On the Media

• Episode: I Can't Breathe
• Website: On the Media
• Feed URL: http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia
• Duration: 00:14:33
• Published: 2018-07-17 18:00

Four years ago this week, on July 17, 2014, Eric Garner died in Staten Island at the hands of a New York City police officer. We probably wouldn't have known if it hadn't been for a cellphone video that captured his arrest, the excessive force that killed him, and his final words. The national media couldn’t look away, until they did look away.

Matt Taibbi is a journalist and author of the book, I Can't Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street, an exploration of Eric Garner’s life and death in the media — and of his real life, too. Brooke spoke to him last year.