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US attorney general Eric Holder announced a federal investigation into “potential civil rights violations” in the death of Eric Garner, just hours after news broke that a local grand jury had decided not to indict the New York police officer who placed Garner in a chokehold, the Guardian reported.

In a televised address, Holder said the Justice Department would investigate whether Garner suffered any civil rights violations when he was placed in a chokehold by New York police department officer Daniel Pantaleo.

A separate DoJ investigation is already underway into Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson’s fatal shooting of another unarmed black man, Michael Brown.

Holder promised the investigation into Garner’s death, which was caught on video, would be “independent, through, fair and expeditious” and pleaded with demonstrators protesting against the decision not to indict Pantaleo to remain peaceful.

The attorney general acknowledged the deaths of 43-year-old Garner and 18-year-old Brown had tapped into wider concerns about policing. “This is not a New York issue, nor a Ferguson issue alone,” he said.

“We’ve all seen the video of Mr Garner’s arrest,” Holder added. “His death is of course was a tragedy. All lives must be valued – all lives. Mr Garner’s death is one of several recent incidents across our great country that have tested the sense of trust that must exist between law enforcement and the communities they are charged to serve and to protect.”

Holder said the Garner case has been “closely monitored” in recent months by the DoJ’s civil rights division, the US attorney’s office for the eastern district of New York and the FBI. All three had allowed the local investigation led by the Staten Island district attorney’s office to proceed first, Holder added.

“Now that the local investigation has concluded I am here to announce that the Justice Department will proceed with a federal civil rights investigation into Mr Garner’s death,” he said.

The attorney general spoke as hundreds of protesters flocked to the streets of Manhattan. There were also small protests in Washington, DC, and elsewhere in the US.