“That’s like asking someone who watched someone killed in the gas chamber to sit down with Mr. Hitler,” he said.The case dragged on, week after week, with Brawley refusing to speak to even a single investigator—ostensibly because she feared that as an African American she would be unable to get a fair hearing.Then at a March 1988 news conference, Sharpton and the attorneys fingered Stephen Pagones, Dutchess County’s assistant district attorney, as one of their client’s attackers. This includes public — i.e., taxpayer-funded — academic institutions. Calling for stricter gun control measures, he Sharpton became deeply involved in the protests that followed a July 17, 2014 incident where a 43-year old African American named Eric Garner died in Staten Island, New York, after having resisted several white police officers’ efforts to arrest him for illegally selling “loosies,” single cigarettes from packs without tax stamps. But Rosenbaum died at 2:30 a.m. Tuesday because the hospital staff missed one of his knife wounds. All rights reserved.