Mom says Erica Garner had a falling out with father Eric Garner before he died
Esaw Snipes reveals her daughter and husband were not on speaking terms.
Esaw Snipes reveals her daughter and husband were not on speaking terms.
Esaw Snipes, the mother of Erica Garner, revealed that the recently departed activist was not on speaking terms with her father Eric Garner before his death.
In an interview on The View, Snipes was asked about comments made by the Rev. Al Sharpton, in which he described Erica, who suffered a deadly heart attack just days after giving birth two months ago, as dying of a broken heart.
“Her and her dad had a falling out right before he passed,” Snipes revealed.
“I was telling him to call her, he was telling me that she could call him because he’s the dad, and I’m telling her she should call him. I was like I’m tired of being the go between, ya’ll are going to have to deal with this yourselves.”
But before the father and daughter could reconcile, Eric Garner had been killed after being placed in a deadly chokehold by a police officer on Staten Island.
In fact, she says, Snipes decided not to tell Erica what all happened with her father until she arrived at the hospital.
“I didn’t even want to tell her the gist of what happened. I just said that he had an asthma attack and went to the hospital and you need to get to Staten Island ASAP.”
When asked to clarify whether Erica and her father spoke at all before he died, Snipes said, “They weren’t speaking.”
“It took a toll on her. All she could say was ‘I didn’t even get to say I was sorry. I didn’t get to say I loved him,'” she added. “And I said he knew you loved him. You were his clone.”
–Erica Garner secretly taped Justice Department meeting–
Grieving daughter’s sudden death
Snipes said that she is “OK” just two months after her 27-year-old daughter died of a heart attack.
“It’s still surreal to me. I just talked to her that morning and I kept telling her you have to stay home and build up your heart strength,” Snipes said.
Erica, determined to keep things business as usual, told her mother, “Ma, I can’t sit in the house all day. I can’t just sit around the house and don’t say nothing,” she recalled Erica Garner saying the morning before she passed.
“I said stay off the internet because you’re making yourself angry and it’s causing you stress. Just leave it alone for a little while…relax,” Snipes recalled.
But Erica, she said, “lived her life by her own terms.”
Eric Garner’s open case
Snipes also cast doubt on reports that Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who killed Garner, was stripped of his badge and gun.
“So they say,” she interjected as Joy Behar mentioned the news item. “I know it not to be true…I’ve had people call me and tell me they’ve seen this officer actually make arrests on Staten Island.”
“I don’t live on Staten Island anymore so I don’t know,” she added.
–Cop earns $120K on desk duty since chokehold death of Eric Garner–
Still, Snipes says she’s done being mad over her husband’s death.
“I’m over it. I’m even passed the anger. It’s pointless,” she said. “After four years you haven’t done anything yet.”
“Every time we have a meeting it’s ‘oh we’ll do something before the year ends. The last meeting we had with the DOJ, which was in August, they said ‘oh we’ll definitely have something to you by the end of the year,'” Snipes said. “Here we are in February 2018 and I haven’t heard a peep yet.”
