It was "completely outrageous" to say racism was at play in the death of Eric Garner, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani told "Fox & Friends."
There were two reasons that proved race was not involved when Garner died last July in Staten Island as police officer Daniel Pantaleo used a chokehold while trying to arrest him, Giuliani maintained — a black sergeant at the scene, and that any suspect under similar circumstances would have been treated the same.
"The part of this that is completely outrageous are the statements that make this a racial incident, when without any doubt this was not a racial incident. The presence of the black sergeant proves that, and the fact that if another man that size resisted arrest, the same thing would have happened," Giuliani, a Republican, said Thursday.
Protests in New York City and across the country followed Wednesday's announcement by a grand jury that Pantaleo would not be indicted in Garner's death.
Protesters have drawn similarities with Garner's death and the death of black youth Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, who was shot last August by white policeman Darren Wilson. A grand jury also failed to indict Wilson, which spawned protests in Ferguson and several cities.
Giuliani said New York Democrat Mayor Bill de Blasio, civil right activist Al Sharpton, "and the others" who
suggested racism was involved in the Garner incident were "tearing down respect for a criminal justice system that goes back to England in the 11th Century," adding that such comments helped "create this atmosphere of protests, and sometimes even violence."
Instead, Giuliani maintained it was racist to focus on the "handful" of incidents where blacks were killed by police, rather than the numbers who died from black-on-black crime.
"Police should never kill anybody unjustifiably," Giuliani said. "But, you should spend 90 percent of your time talking about the way they're actually probably going to get killed, which is by another black. To avoid that fact, to avoid that fact, I think, is racism."
In the wake of the grand jury announcement, De Blasio should be talking about "patience (and) calm," and then spending the majority of his time focusing "on the way people in that community are actually victimized, if he really cares about them."
It was "ignorant" of New York Democrat Rep. Charlie Rangel to say after the announcement that it was "totally impossible to believe that someone can die, and nobody is indicted."
"You don't always indict someone because somebody dies," Giuliani said. "It's a totally absurd statement. He's only intending to inflame people. And, he gives people a totally ignorant view of the law and the complexity of the law."
Giuliani suggested that perhaps activists like Sharpton could accomplish "something constructive" if they talked about crime in the black community "with the same passion, the same intention" as they did in the "few situations where police shoot someone."
Giuliani said the incidents of both Garner and Brown involved people who had committed a crime, and that perhaps both men "wouldn't be dead today" if they hadn’t resisted arrest.
He said the incidents should not be an indictment of the grand jury process.
"I've been before hundreds of grand juries as a prosecutor. And, I have always found them to be extraordinarily conscientious citizens. They take an oath, and they take this very seriously," he said.
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