“Clearly a black man’s life is not worth a ham sandwich,” said former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele on MSNBC yesterday. He said that the Eric Garner grand jury decision is “part of the same narrative, it’s the same linear story” as the Michael Brown case in Ferguson, Mo.
In both cases, juries failed to indict white police officers in the deaths of unarmed black men. In Garner’s case, video was captured by a bystander that shows him choking and repeating “I can’t breathe” eleven times.
“We very much appreciate the protections and the role that police play in our communities,” said Steele. “But there are some very, very bright lines that have begun to appear over the last 18-24 months. And they tell us that where a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich? Well clearly a black man’s life is not worth a ham sandwich when you put these stories together. And that is the frustration that a lot of African-Americans – and a lot of Americans, quite honestly, have with these two decisions.”
Steele: “The facts and the evidence all put into the proper context begs that this at least gets to a jury of the individual’s peers so that we as a community can go through this process and begin the healing and begin take a more open look at our criminal justice system. This type of decision makes that very, very hard to do.”
Steele is an attorney who received his law degree from Georgetown, served as lieutenant governor in Maryland from 2003 to 2007 and as Republican National Committee chairman from 2009 to 2011.