UPDATED 01/21/15, 9:22 a.m. EST: Erica Garner directly addressed the memorial incident after her weekly march Tuesday evening. “They burned it down, but they can never wash the blood that they spilled on 202 Bay Street, August 17th, 2014,” she said next to the site, reasserting her belief that someone intentionally set the memorial on fire. “We will not forget Eric Garner.”
People also placed electric candles at the scene in replacement of regular ones.
Watch video of Erica speaking at the memorial here:
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On Monday, a mysterious fire burned down part of cop-slain Eric Garner’s memorial on the street he died on, the New York Daily News reports.
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Fire Department of New York (FDNY) officials received a call around 10:24 p.m. Monday evening, alerting them to the fire at 202 Bay Street. And while a FDNY spokesman said he isn’t sure if the fire marshal was investigating the incident or not, photos posted to Facebook show that the memorial appears to have been physically damaged.
Though the fire’s origins remain unclear, Garner’s eldest daughter, Erica Garner, believes it was deliberate:
Erica also tweeted a picture of the damaged memorial:
In apparent response to the small blaze, a source blamed the fire on “candles under plexiglass,” with a resident on the street sending Erica a message imploring her and others not to light candles on the memorial:
Posting online, Erica claims that she has received threats since the incident:
“[I] got [a] strange [message] today [saying] someone had threaten[ed] me if i rebuild and put more candles [then]she will go about another way,” Garner posted.
The blaze came on the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, featuring a die-in and wreath laying ceremony at the memorial to commemorate the day.
In response to the suspicious fire, the Garner family will hold their usual bi-weekly march to the site, with an emphasis on rebuilding the structure. For more information, visit the #BuildItBackTwiceAsBig Facebook event page.
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