Boehner open to hearings on Garner's death

House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday that he would be open to holding a congressional hearing to investigate the death of Eric Garner.

“There are a lot of unanswered questions that Americans have and, frankly, I have,” the Ohio Republican said at a news conference.


His comments come one day after a Staten Island grand jury announced that it would not indict the police officer responsible for putting Garner in a chokehold, which led to his death.

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Boehner said that this incident and the killing of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, present “serious tragedies” in American society.

On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Thursday, high-ranking Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) said that the House should “absolutely” hold hearings to investigate Garner’s death.

Boehner answered Rodgers’ push for an investigation at the news conference, saying, “Whether it is the Department of Justice, whether my colleague Cathy McMorris Rogers earlier today suggested that there may need to be hearings — I’m not going to rule that in or out — but I do think that the American people deserve answers about what really happened here and was — [the] system of justice handled properly.”