The New York Daily News is making it clear where the paper stands on the decision by a grand jury not to indict New York City police officer Daniel Pantaleo for the choking death of Eric Garner.
"WE CAN'T BREATHE," the paper declares on its front page, along with a photo showing Garner before he was brought down by a chokehold at the hands of Pantaleo.
The cover echoes some of the last words of Garner, who cried out "I can't breathe" several times before collapsing on July 17. A medical examiner later said the death was the result of the chokehold, a move banned by the NYPD, and ruled it a homicide.
UPDATE: Early Thursday, the New York Post released its front page... and the newspaper took a completely different approach:
Newsday, the Long Island newspaper, also released an editorial cartoon on the decision:
But it's the Daily News cover that quickly became a hot topic on social media.
The Daily News also published an editorial saying the grand jury's decision "has the earmarks of a gross miscarriage of justice."
"The ruling is painfully far harder to understand than the Missouri grand jury’s decision not to indict for the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson," the editorial states, pointing to the widely circulated video of Garner being brought down by Pantaleo.
The editorial also predicts that the decision will have consequences.
The grand jury’s apparent determination that Pantaleo had properly subdued Garner will heighten raw racial friction over the killings of black men by white cops here and elsewhere, and, still worse, intensify a belief that the justice system offers no redress.
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