The daughter of Eric Garner, the Staten Island man whose death at the hands of police last summer was caught on video, accused the Reverend Al Sharpton of being interested only in the money his National Action Network can make through tragedies like the one that befell her family.
In a heavily-edited video released by James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, undercover reporters are shown asking African American activists and relatives of Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner what they think about Sharpton.
Bishop Calvin Scott, a Ferguson, Missouri pastor who attended meetings with the reverend last year, accused Sharpton of “sort of incit[ing] people for the wrong reason . . . When you got a fuse that’s already lit, you don’t need to add no more fire to it.” The executive director of the Trayvon Martin Foundation distanced his organization from Sharpton, saying they decided not to invite the reverend to a high-profile fundraising dinner.
Garner’s daughter, Erica Snipes, was particularly explicit in her condemnation of the reverend. “He’s all about this,” she said, rubbing her fingers together. “He’s about money with you?” the reporter pressed. “Yeah,” she replied.
Snipes was even more incensed by Sharpton’s National Action Network, which she claims “attacked” her for failing to include its logo on fliers for her late father. “Al Sharpton paid for the funeral,” she said, claiming that NAN officials were “trying to make me feel like I owe them.”