What To Make Of The Suburban Chicago Woman Who Filed To Trademark Eric Garner's Last Words?

By Jon Graef in News on Dec 20, 2014 6:00PM

This chokehold by New York City police officer Daniel Pantaleo on Eric Garner was banned by the NYPD since 1993. Chokeholds are not allowed by Chicago Police Department but they aren't banned, either.

By now, you've seen the story about a woman in suburban Chicago who has petitioned the United States Patent and Trademark Office to trademark Eric Garner's last words as he was choked to death by New York police. (Words that protesters have reclaimed as an anti-police brutality chant.)

A recap, just in case: According to The Smoking Gun, Catherine Crump, of Waukegan, IL, filed the petition on December 13, and wants to "register the phrase for use on hoodies and t-shirts for men, women, boys, girls, and infants."

So, an "I Can't Breathe" onesie, just in time for the holidays. Superb!

The Smoking Gun notes Crump "contends she has been using 'I Can't Breathe' for commercial purposes" since August. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Crump also told The Smoking Gun she has "nothing to do with the Garner family" nor did she apparently speak with the Garner family about her filing.

By now, the simple question of "why" may have crossed your mind. In short, your guess is as good as ours, as Crump's not elaborating upon what her intentions may be:

While claiming that her purpose for marketing “I can’t breathe” garments was not to make money, she declined to disclose what other reason there was for her trademark filing (which cost $325).

Three similar entrepreneurs have filed to trademark the phrase “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” for use on clothing items. Each of those USPTO applications was filed within three weeks of the August 9 death of Michael Brown, the unarmed teenager who was shot to death by a cop in Ferguson, Missouri.

The fact Crump says her reason for filing the trademark is not to make money leaves space, however slight, to entertain an altruistic motive. If that is the case, the trademark filing, then, seems tone-deaf and appropriating at best. (That said, somebody is making t-shirts, and t-shirts don't grow on trees. Cost enters the picture. But if altruism is the motive, why not just make the t-shirts, donate them, and swallow the costs. No one expects you to be Jay Z, but everyone can play a part.)

Now here's the worst case scenario: it's a shameless money grab. In that case, that means only in America would an enterprising soul get the idea to trademark a dying man's horrific last words by the hands of the people who are supposed to serve him, simply because a potential profit exists. Let nothing go unexploited in the land of the free and the home of the brave. The true American way. Shameful, but not surprising.

What to do with a world in which people like this exist.

Imagine how a cup of coffee between Crump and this guy would go.