Mothers of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice Speak Out on CNN

The mothers of Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin sat down with CNN's Anderson Cooper for the first time.

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Hours after the release of a medical examiner's report ruling her son's death a homicide, the mother of Tamir Rice appeared on Anderson Cooper 360 Friday night, alongside three other mothers who understand her pain too well. 

The women's late sons, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and Michael Brown shared similar fates, for similar reasons, Martin's mother Sybrina Fulton told host Anderson Cooper

"In all of these cases, these victims were unarmed. These victims were African-American. That needs to be our conversation," Fulton said.

In what was the first time that the four women, whose sons have become symbols of police brutality and racial profiling for protesters around the U.S. and the world, have spoken out together.

"I think absolutely my son's race and the color of his skin had a lot to do with why he was shot and killed," Fulton said of Martin, who was shot and killed in 2012 by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman, who was later acquitted of murder. 

"If Eric Garner was a white man in Suffolk County doing the same thing that he was doing -- even if he would have been caught selling cigarettes that day -- they would have given him a summons and he wouldn't have lost his life that day. I believe that 100 percent," said Garner's mother Gwen Carr of her son who died in Staten Island after an officer placed him in a chokehold. 

"I was (sure) they would indict the officer that shot my son without a video tape. You had so many witnesses," said Lesley McSpadden, Brown's mother said of her unarmed son who was shot by an officer in Ferguson, Mo. 

Samaria Rice's 12-year-old son Tamir Rice was shot in November by a Cleveland police officer who police say thought Tamir Rice's toy gun was real.  Samaria Rice recounted getting a knock on her door from two boys, not the police, who informed her that Tamir had been shot.

Samaria Rice said she saw her son in the street "just bleeding there" with "nobody ... doing anything" to help him. She told Cooper that the officer wouldn't have reacted the same way to her son if she didn't live in such a "rough neighborhood."

[Via CNN]

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