Opera to mark 10th anniversary of Eric Garner's chokehold death

Zoom in: The opera, the Ritual of Breath is the Rite to Resist, is scheduled for Friday at Lincoln Center's Damrosch Park as part of a five-day festival of poetry readings, multimedia art and speeches on Garner.

• The opera, featuring a 75-person chorus of singers from Sing Harlem and the Dartmouth College Gospel Choir, will center around Eric's daughter, Erica.
• Organizers say the work is grounded by a creative team including activist Shamell Bell; Garner's mother, Gwen Carr; and a group of mothers who have lost their children to police violence.

What they're saying: Mary Lou Aleskie, executive director of the Hop, told Axios: "What we hope people walk away with...is that change, resistance and healing is modeled by the mothers."

• Aleskie said artists want the audience to know they have the power to make reforms to prevent future episodes of police violence.
• "Eric Garner was a person," she said. "He was a father. He was someone who loved and was loved."

Zoom out: Carr also will lead a 10th memorial service in Staten Island's Tompkinsville Park.

Context: Garner died in 2014 during an arrest in New York's Staten Island for selling loose cigarettes.

• His arrest was recorded on cell phone video where he could be heard telling officers, "I can't breathe" before he died.

• Former NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who used a banned chokehold on Garner, was fired in 2019.
• Garner's family received a $5.9 million settlement from the city of New York in 2015, MSNBC reported.

Between the lines: Garner's death came just days before 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri.

• Both killings helped cement the Black Lives Matter movement and drew attention to aggressive policing in Black and Latino communities during the Obama administration.
• Six years later, George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, drawing more attention to systemic racism and policing.

What we're watching: Focus on the 10th anniversaries of the killings of Garner and Brown could reignite efforts at police reforms, which have stalled amid partisanship in Washington.

• Police reform so far has rarely come up in the 2024 presidential race.

Go deeper: Courts take action as police reform stalls