New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said Thursday that he wouldn’t “second guess” a grand jury’s decision not to indict a New York City police officer in the death of Eric Garner.
“When I was U.S. Attorney, I used to really, really dislike when politicians who didn’t know a tenth of what the prosecutors and the grand jury knew would second guess their work purely for political reasons or out of ignorance,” Christie said during a visit to Calgary, Canada, as quoted by the New Jersey Star-Ledger. “So I’m not going to second-guess that work.”
“You never know all of the things that a grand jury knows unless you’re in that grand jury working with them,” he added.
Democrats and Republicans alike have condemned the grand jury decision or called for further hearings and investigations into Garner’s death. Part of the reason that Garner’s death has united both sides of the aisle is that a video was widely circulated showing NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who is white, putting Garner, who was black, in a chokehold while Garner protested that he couldn’t breathe.
Christie declined to say whether he’d viewed that video, according to the Star-Ledger.
