NEW YORK, December 9 (Sputnik) – Schneiderman formally requested that New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo issue an interim executive order now directing his office to probe and prosecute cases involving unarmed civilians killed by police officers.
The attorney's request comes as tensions remain raised over high-profile police killings of African Americans, including Garner, killed in a chokehold in New York in July, and Michael Brown, who was shot dead by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in August.
"The horrible events surrounding the death of Eric Garner have revealed a deep crisis of confidence in some of the fundamental elements of our criminal justice system," Schneiderman said in a statement on Monday.
He noted that it was crucial for the public and the police to act immediately "to restore trust and confidence in the independence of reviews in any case involving an unarmed civilian killed by a law enforcement officer".
New York has been rocked by a wave of protests, with crowds chanting anti-police slogans over a grand jury decision to not charge white lawman Daniel Pantaleo who killed Garner, 43, an African-American street peddler, with a chokehold earlier this year.
The United States saw another wave of race-related unrest in previous weeks over the decision not to indict another white police officer, Darren Wilson, who shot dead unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson.
