JOURNALISTS REVEAL DRAMATIC RACE TO BEAT POLICE TO ERIC GARNER VIDEO
Funeral for Eric Garner, Brooklyn, July 23, 2014. Photo Credit: JB Nicholas.
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Video of Eric Garner's killing by NYPD officer Daniel Pantoleo kickstarted the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2014. While some of what journalists did that night to secure the bystander video that captured Garner's killing before the NYPD could get to it has been reported, the full story of what was a truly dramatic race has never been revealed—until now.
It started with a police scanner. Scanners allow journalists to glean news tips from police radio broadcasts. They give journalists the power to chase down news as it's happening, in real time, instead of following information disclosed later, if at all, by public officials. Newsrooms are frequently equipped with police scanners, as are the vehicles used by news photographers patrolling the City for breaking news.
Ken Murray was a second-generation New York Daily News photographer. Murray was listening to the police scanner in his car on July 17, 2014 when he heard what he said was a "shady" police radio broadcast. Hearing the "shady" transmission, Murray telephoned the newsdesk at Daily News headquarters for instructions. The News dispatched him to see what happened.
"I called the desk and said this sounds shady because they're not specifying what the crime scene is for. The desk said 'Go check it out,’” Murray told me.
Murray's story matters now more than ever because it highlights the indispensable role police scanners play in news gathering and reporting at a time when police departments across America are updating their technology to render scanners obsolete.
Murray was born to be a news photographer. His heart doesn't pump red blood it pumps black ink. His father was Jack Murray, tow-truck-driver-turned-news photographer. Jack died on assignment for the Daily News, July 29, 1971, Sunset Park, Brooklyn. He was 50. The hero journalist father died in front of his 9 year-old boy.
"He went to cover a riot in Sunset Park. The Puerto Ricans against the Whites. It was like West Side Story. I went with him," Murray told me.
"The Puerto Ricans threw a firebomb at the car. A Molotov cocktail," Murray said
Father drove the family's flaming car to the firehouse.
Photo credit: Ken Murray via Facebook.
"My father opened the door. He got out and dropped dead. Right there on the sidewalk in front of the fire house. In front of me. He had a heart attack," Murray said.
The Daily News published an account of the killing with this headline: "Photog Dies As Bayridge Fray Goes on."
That same year the newspaper also purchased and published two of 9 year-old Ken Murray's photographs, his first.
"They were the most horrid pictures you ever seen," Murray recalled. "A fire and then a pedestrian struck. They were in the Brooklyn edition."
"I covered more stories than you could ever imagine," Murray boasted, proudly
However, when it came to detailing his role in breaking the story of Garner's killing by police, he was reticent: "Why you callin' me? I'm retired. I don't want to talk about it."
I told Murray he was part of history, whether he liked it or not. He had to talk. The normally gregarious and voluble Murray explained his uncharacteristic silence by revealing relatives of his are police officers: "I got a lot of relatives on the job. It's an old story. I did my job and that's all I can say."
Murray eventually talked. He did it because we had once been news photographer colleagues.
"I remember you," Murray explained. "You were a nice guy. You never screwed me. That's the only reason I'm talkin' to you.”
Murray was driving to another assignment moments after Eric Garner was killed by NYPD officers in the 120th Precinct on Staten Island shortly after 3:30 pm. Murray lived on Staten Island. The scanner in his car was always tuned to cover the 120th NYPD Precinct on Staten Island where he lived. Normal people tune into music in their cars. News photographers listen to police scanners.
"I was on the way to Brooklyn for some Hollywood star caught with drugs. NYPD called a mobilization. I heard it on the radio, on the scanner," Murray revealed.
Police know their radio transmissions are monitored by journalists. They also use mobile telephones, email and encrypted, mobile text messaging applications, such as Signal. When they have no other choice but to use their radios to transmit information about something they consider "sensitive," something that would, for example, attract media attention, police leave things out.
Journalists have to read between the lines, like Murray did.
Murray arrived at the crime scene in front of 202 Bay Street and immediately recognized the significance of the killing.
"I tipped off everybody that I knew. My friends. Kerry Burke was there. Chelsia Marcius. Talk to them."
Alfred Giancarli (l) and Ken Murray (r) on assignment for the New York Daily News, 2009. Photo credit Rob Bennet via Facebook.
Burke is a reporter for the New York Daily News. I've known him since 2006, when I started working as a news photographer for the New York Post. He’s also the dean of New York City street reporters: nobody currently working has worked the street longer than him. He's seen so much wrong he named his two sons Justice and Lincoln so that at least something would be right.
Burke told me he was working in Queens when Murray called him "excited. He knew what he had."
"Burke you'd better get down here this is real," Burke recalled Murray telling him. "I jumped in [Daily News photographer] Sam Costanza's car and we flew to Staten Island.
"We worked the streets until we found the family and got his name," Burke said, referring to Garner. "No one had his name."
While Burke and Costanza were hunting down Garner's name and family, Murray scoured the street for witnesses to Garner’s killing.
When I got there, everybody kept saying a cop killed a guy. A cop killed a guy. You take the first two or three with a grain of salt. I need proof. I'm a journalist. And so I get to another person, she says another person has video.
Murray found that person and she showed him her video. Garner was killed on the sidewalk in front of a store. The video was shot inside the store. It did not capture what Murray described as "the action."
Murray continued searching for more witnesses and video. He uncovered a tantalizing lead.
"I found three or four guys who said this guy had the whole thing 'on tape.' So my main thing was to track him down. So I tracked him down."
Murray tracked down Ramsey Orta. Orta also captured video of Garner's killing. It captured the action. Orta helped Murray download the videos to his own mobile telephone so he could transmit it to the Daily News. Orta initially gave the video to the Daily News via Murray for free. Later, the newspaper purchased the video and its copyright from Orta.
Murray negotiated with Orta on the Daily News' behalf. When I asked him how much he paid, Murray finally hung up on me. However, two people with knowledge of the transaction confirmed the newspaper paid between $2000 to $4000. One said it was $2,500. The News also paid to put Orta up in a hotel.
Meanwhile, Burke found out Garner and his family lived in a hi-rise public housing project near where Garner was killed. He didn’t find out which tower they lived in until he walked around the complex. Cops standing outside the correct tower were the tell. Burke went inside the tower and "worked the elevators. I've been doing that for 20 years."
Many residents of public housing view strangers, especially the press, with suspicion. They are often reluctant to talk to journalists, much less speak for the record. Working the elevators meant taking advantage of the natural inclination of strangers to fill silence. A resident told Burke she would press an elevator button and when the doors opened on that floor she would look the way he should walk.
"They live down at the end," the helpful stranger told Burke.
Once Murray transmitted the video to the Daily News, the News sent it to Burke.
Most news groups, accustomed to the lightning-fast pace of the digital news age, might have published the video on their Internet website right away. The Daily News, in its bones an old-school newspaper, didn’t rush the job. It waited. It waited because it wanted to include the reaction of Garner’s family to his killing by police.
So when Burke walked down that long, lonely hall he did it knowing what the Garner family did not know. He did it knowing what the whole, wide world did not know but was about to find out. He knocked on their door. Garner’s family had just returned from the hospital.
"I pushed my way into their apartment," Burke recalled. "They already knew he was dead. They hadn't seen the video."
Burke showed the family the video on his phone—the video Murray got from Orta of cops killing Garner. It was the first time they, or anyone outside Orta and the Daily News, saw it.
"I let them know they had to speak on his behalf," Burke added, and they did.
"When I kissed my husband this morning, I never thought it would be for the last time," Garner's wife, Esaw, told Burke.
"I want justice,” Garner's mother, Gwen Carr, added.
From left, Hasani Gittens, New York Post; Jennifer Fermino, New York Post; and Kerry Burke (c), New York Daily News, holding framed, simulated Daily News report celebrating the birth of Burke’s first son, 2010. Photo credit: JB Nicholas.
"I got something for you," Zach Haberman, Daily News breaking news editor, told digital editor Colin DeVries on the newsroom floor around 9:00 pm.
DeVries was overnight homepage editor. He was responsible for updating nydailynews.com with news from the day. That included publishing the newspaper's report on Garner’s killing. DeVries worked on the homepage headline and the image to go with the report. He used stills from the video of police killing Garner. It was the first time the video was published.
Murray, Burke, Marcius and Rocco Parascandola shared the history-making report's joint byline. Editors recognized Murray made it happen. That’s why they placed his name first . Marcius helped Murray find and handle Orta. Parascandola obtained the NYPD's response to Garner's killing.
When the newsroom team, including Haberman and DeVries, finally settled on the report's headline, DeVries typed it into the News' Content Management System. Then he pressed publish. It was as if he detonated a bomb. That was the force of the report that exploded from the Daily News' Internet homepage and the newspaper the next day.
"I can't breathe! I can't breathe!" Eric Garner, 43, repeatedly screamed after at least five NYPD officers took him down in front of a Tompkinsville beauty supply store when he balked at being handcuffed.
The rest is literally history. "I CAN'T BREATHE" became the rallying cry of the-then nascent Black Lives Matters movement. That movement crested with the murder of George Floyd by St. Paul police in 2020. Lawmakers in New York and many places across the United States rewrote laws reforming policing in their jurisdictions.
Garner's killing, and the video, was a big part of its foundation.
It is questionable, some say doubtful, whether Orta's video of Garner's killing would ever have been published anywhere if Murray hadn't got it for the Daily News.
"Nobody would have known," Todd Maisel says about the Garner killing.
Maisel was Murray's colleague at the Daily News. He also served 15 years as Vice President of the New York Press Photographers Association. He remains on its board and Chair of its Government Relations Committee.
"We would have never got the video," Maisel explained. "The cops would have hid the video. The story would have went away. It's Staten Island."
Staten Island is not like the rest of New York City. Its relationship to the City's four other boroughs is like that between the 1960s South and the rest of America. It tends to be Conservative. It consistently elects Republicans.
Orta was an outlaw with a long record of arrests. One journalist who dealt with him personally confidentially characterized him to me a "scumbag." The way I see it, if Murray hadn't found Orta first, he might've held onto the video of cops killing Garner to use as a Get Out of Jail Free card the next time he needed it. But maybe that's making him smarter than he is.
Orta himself told The Verge he was targeted by NYPD officers just hours after he gave the video to Murray. They surrounded his home. They shined a spotlight through its windows, Orta said.
What Orta didn't say was that he was miles away on the other side of New York harbor resting comfortably in clean sheets when it happened: the Daily News had the experience, foresight and money to put him up in a Manhattan hotel registered in someone else’s name. The move not only hid Orta from police—it hid him from the competition, primarily the New York Post, too.
Orta was arrested by the NYPD twice after he captured Garner's killing on video. He pleaded guilty to both charges and served four years in prison, according to state prison records.
By contrast, Darnella Frazier, the citizen who captured and used Facebook to publish her video of the police murder of George Floyd by Minnesota police in 2020, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation in 2021
The Daily News made millions of dollars off of the video of Garner's killing that Orta shot (but probably not as much as Facebook). The video Murray hunted down and purchased for the newspaper—for a bargain price.
"The Daily News made more money off that video than I made in my whole lifetime working there. Then they fired me," Murray charged.
Murray never got recognized for his history-changing work. What he got was laid off when the Daily News decided it didn’t need any photographers anymore and fired almost everyone in its photography department in July 2018. He sold his Staten Island home and retired to Orlando, Florida. He builds patio decks for a living today.
Murray doesn't want to be remembered for the Garner job.
"I want to be remembered for covering 9/11 twice," he said, referring to both the 1993 and 2001 bombings of the World Trade Center. "For the polar bears that ate the kid in Prospect Park."
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