I Can't Breathe

The incredible story of the death of Eric Garner, the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement and the new fault lines of race, protest, policing and the power of the people.

On July 17, 2014, a forty-three-year-old black man named Eric Garner died in New York after a police officer put him in a "chokehold" during an arrest for selling bootleg cigarettes. The final moments of his life were captured on video and seen by millions - his agonised last words, "I can't breathe," becoming a rallying cry for the nascent Black Lives Matter protest movement.

Matt Taibbi tells the full story of the man who inspired a movement - neither villain nor victim, but a fiercely proud individual determined to do the best he could for his family.