U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) says the NYPD’s 2014 killing of an unarmed Black man, Eric Garner, by suffocation, was because of “exorbitant taxes.”
Garner had quit his job as a horticulturalist for health reasons, and police were in the process of starting to arrest him for allegedly selling loose cigarettes without a tax stamp on a package.
“In fact the death of Eric Garner, the sad death of Eric Garner being choked to death in New York City, had to do with taxes,” the Kentucky Republican Senator claimed on the floor of the Senate Friday morning.
“And some people are offended by this, oh, ‘it’s police brutality.’ Of course it was. But it was police brutality based on exorbitant taxes that caused this man to be selling cigarettes. loose cigarettes, in order to try to make a living,” Paul said.
Garner wasn’t selling loose cigarettes because taxes were too high. If anything, the lack of access to health care is far more to blame for Garner being forced to quit his job for health reasons and taking to the streets to try to make money selling cigarettes than taxes.
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