Not to participate in the latest media frenzy after just criticizing such frenzies, but Garner’s story is tragically interesting. Because of that video. (Trigger warning: not for the faint of heart; shows a man dying.)
Here’s what I think:
- I don’t know enough of the background to second-guess the NYPD officer who chose to take Garner down.
- Having said that, apparently, the chokehold was a violation of the NYPD’s own procedure manual.
- And the NYPD does appear negligent in just standing there while Garner was dying. (Rather than trying to revive him. Remember, Garner was cuffed by then.)
Your thoughts?
UPDATES:
- Via Althouse, An NYPD Officer Opens Up About What Went Wrong in the Eric Garner Case.
- Hint: It wasn’t race. Garner’s arrest was overseen by a female black sergeant in the NYPD.
- Good commentary from Robert Tracinski. He says, “The contradiction of the left is that they want to inject government into every little aspect of our lives and mandate that the police confront us all the time over everything—and then they scream when some of those confrontations go wrong.” And much more about policing and the use of force, that is sensible.
Cops: Protecting and Serving the Hell Out of You.
It’s a bad sign when Bob Massi and Charles Krauthammer, hardly libertarians, believe that the cop was guilty of negligent homicide at the very least.
It’s a little chilling that people say, “Well he resisted arrest, so he caused his own death.” Let that sink in: he died because he resisted. He died because he questioned government officials, because he did not immediately submit to their wishes without objection. Submit or die. That sounds like something the villain in a fantasy series would say. How the heck did we get to a point where cops enforce that in deed?
Just one comment, which I thought was pertinent. Garner did not die of asphyxiation. He died of cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital
Find the entire video and watch it — screw the edited versions.
Anyone with police experience would recognize Garner’s tone and body language as that of a liar when he denies 3 times having done anything illegal.
In the full video you can see one policeman approach Garner after an emphatic denial of selling loosies to point at and possibly touch Garner’s bulging pants pockets. Garner’s body language was not that of an innocent man.
Garner had more than 30 prior arrests and was known to police. In the video police tell Garner merchants had complained about him selling loose cigarettes. Garner admits doing it.
He refuses to submit to the policemen peacefully.
Here’s the thing that blew me away… The whole choke hold chatter is bullshit. 4 years USMC with 2 in Afghanistan + 3 and half years as county law Tactical Response Team (SWAT) Watch the video. Count the number of times Garner says “I can’t breathe” after the grip around his neck is released. THAT WAS NO CHOKE HOLD.
This was “just one of those things” – terrible but it happens. I don’t think the cop intended to kill this guy and, most of the time, this level of force wouldn’t cause death (or injuries much worse than scrapes and bruises). I don’t think there is criminal liability here but it may well be that the NYPD decides that the use of force was inappropriate in which case the cop may be fired. I suppose it’s possible that the cops resorted to force too quickly (but how long are they to cajole and plead with the suspect before making him submit?).
There is no use of force that looks good on camera. Cops aren’t trained to use the Vulcan nerve pinch.
We hire cops to enforce the laws and walking away when the suspect doesn’t want to be arrested is not an option. If I get stopped for speeding, am I entitled to just drive away because I think the posted speed limit is dumb?
If this violation is trivial then repeal the law and stop enacting trivial laws. It is not up to the cops to adjudicate citizen objections to the law – that is what legislatures (and judges in some cases) are for.
I don’t know anything about NY and NYC law but I do wonder whether or not selling ciggies is an offense that requires a custodial arrest. Is issuing an summons an option? If so, why did the cops elect to make a custodial arrest? Given that Garner had 32 prior arrests, maybe a verbal warning was not appropriate.
From what I understand, once Garner was down and unconscious, no attempt was made to administer first aid by the cops or paramedics that arrived later. If that’s the case, it’s inexcusable (and, if not illegal, it should be). When I was a member of a police reserve, we were taught that once a suspect (and situation) was secured, immediate first aid was to be rendered if needed.
There is no doubt in my mind that government uses excessive force all the time (SWAT teams raiding guitar factories, seizing Land Rovers, etc) and some cops to resort to force too quickly but the bottom line is that all criminal laws carry with them the authorization to use force.
In this case, I hope the grand jury evidence is released so we can see the whole picture.
@ Virge Steen: Ah, so you’re one of those guys who bashes down doors and shoots oldsters because some informant told you there were drug dealers?
SL #3 – Yes. One question that I still haven’t thought through is, how much of a right of self-defense do we all retain – *against the government*? (Given that the government’s monopoly on the legal use of force arises from our having delegated a part of our natural right of self-defense, to government.)
But, regardless of the answer there, it’s clear that with great power/privilege goes great responsibility. Given the government’s legal monopoly on force, it must always use that force verrrrrry carefully.
CS #4 – So, was Garner still breathing, while on the ground? Asking because I don’t know. The guy who took the video said that he saw Garner’s mouth foaming and eyes rolling back (implying that if Garner didn’t die while on the ground, he was very close to it).
VS #5 – As Garner was a black marketeer, I’m sure he did lie. That doesn’t explain what happened after. As to the choke hold, I’ll defer to your experience – except that, as Garner says “I can’t breathe”, he does sound to me like he has real throat damage.
KCR #6 – I agree that the cop surely didn’t intend to damage/kill Garner. I question what was happening (or failing to happen) a few seconds later, as all the cops stood around.
As to selling ciggies and the (horrible) reasons why New York would have a black market in ciggies and would crack down on the black market sellers of ciggies: Let’s just say it’s clear that New York City is a (horrible) police state, in that respect.
Yes; I mean, that’s where I’m questioning the NYPD.
It’s police brutality & was their discretionary decision to take action against this minor crime with the overall imprimatur of, the ultimate crime of resisting arrest.
The cop should have been indicted for negligent homicide, at the very least. At the most, the prosecutor should go ahead & charge for murder assuming it would plea down to negligent homicide.
This is yet another glaring reason not to jump on the police bandwagon, assuming they are always right & correct as discussed previously. To support the police in their every endeavor & action, promotes a police state & that’s only something that liberals support until it comes down to brass tacks.
As I’ve said previously, the police associations & unions nationwide have sucked up to the Democrats since ’09 & are not deserving of conservative sympathy, generally speaking.
Killed for selling cigarettes? Dude, that ain’t right.
V – that’s the point… what are police supposed to do when a subject decides he doesn’t want to go peacefully? He wasn’t killed for selling cigarettes. He died as a result of being handcuffed against his will (aka resisting arrest).
As I wrote earlier, I think the questions are 1) why a custodial arrest instead of a summons and 2) why wasn’t aid rendered as soon as the subject was secured?
Given some of the events here in the KC area over the last few months (involving lily-white people), I have no doubt that there are cops too eager to use more force than that needed to effect an arrest.
In this case, I think Garner’s physical condition contributed quite a bit to his death and I don’t know how a cop, duty-bound to make the arrest, can know in advance that a take down will result in death. Most cops aren’t dumb: they know that misconduct, recorded and witnessed, is a career-detonating event (at the minimum). Especially if the suspect is a minority (when whites die at the hands of police, there’s seldom much of a fuss – even when there should be).
One thing not always noted in this case was that there was a uniformed sergeant, a black woman, on the scene during the arrest.
It will be interesting to read what the grand jury saw. In the meantime, people would be wise to accept that when the cops want to take you in, you may as well go. The odds are heavily in their favor.
Brutal and negligent. And all this for cigarettes! That was hard to watch. I’m glad the guy recorded it, for my instinct would have been to file the whole outrage away under the heading of NYC liberal propaganda.
@ KCRob: Power corrupts, and positions of power always attract those who have a desire to exercise power. And now with the kind of firepower that many police departments are being given, it’s no surprise that bullies and folds with something to prove would want to get their hands on bullet-proof vests and MRAPs.
I’ve seen videos made by SWAT teams more befitting white nationalist militia groups. Yeah, I really feel safe with guys like that “protecting” me.
It’s interesting – Garner died over cigarettes. Yes, he did. He had illegal cigaretts on his person and was willing to resist arrest over them, whch led to his death. Would he have behaved the same way if he knew that his physical condition would contribute to his death?
It seems like…as some point (after, maybe, 30 arrests or so) criminals should get a pass? Or if they resist arrest, the police officers should throw up their hands and walk away?
A few years ago, in Michigan, a tragic thing happened. A special ed student needed to be restrained and a (then) legal restraint was used. The student was on the floor and suffocated and died. It was a tragic accident. And it brought about changed laws that prevent any student from being restrained while on the floor, and it changed the way we were trained in phyhsical management.
That said, I’m all for equal treatment under the law. But with rights come responsibility and I’m weary of people who want the same treatment for all, without the same expectations for all.
KCRob has identified the key to this dilemma. The cops were enforcing a law. Garner was resisting the enforcement.
The cops made choices which contributed to Garner’s death.
Garner made choices which contributed to his own death.
Garner did not die of asphyxiation or damage to his windpipe. He died from the stress of the arrest which aggravated his asthmatic conditions and his weak heart overwhelmed by his obesity which overtaxed his system.
The core problem is the infraction. Garner was selling bootleg individual cigarettes at a rate attractive to smokers who wished to avoid the state tax cost of legal smokes. It was all about a penny-ante black-market tax dodge defined as societal deviancy.
Now, compare that with the leaking sieve that is the concept of “social justice.”
Should Garner have been ignored because of his underdog status on the “social justice” totem pole? If so, how do you inform the cops who they must bypass by permitting deviancy and who is liable to community policing.
Had Bloomberg had his way, Garner might just as well been the “victim” of cops if he had been caught with a Big Gulp.
How many ways are people in general being “victimized” by the power of the policing powers of the state? There are many who would love to have the cops wander around looking for signs of disapproval as evidence of the existence of fertilizer for presumed hate: hate crimes are a real policing power rat’s nest.
Someone in authority made it permissible for the police to confront the crime of stealing 25¢ from the state cigarette tax coffers. For that DiBlasio and his ilk need to reexamine their own rush to legislate and regulate.
I blame the idiocy of the nanny state. The state legislature of New York is as complicit in Garner’s death as are the cops.
Garner is dead because of 25¢ in New York cigarette taxes. The “social justice” geniuses now need to figure out how to handle the unintended consequences of the application of their nanny state spanking hands.
Another thought – my son is so white, he’s nearly translucent. We lived in an urban neighborhood and that came with the cautions, etc. My son is vision impaired and walks “funny” since he depends on “ground feel” to walk. He also (as part of the vision thing) has insomnia and takes walks at night. A police officer saw him and thought he was drunk, he was walking with no ID and got handcuffed and put in the back seat of the cruiser while everything was sorted out.
He said, “if it happens again, I’ll fight!” I told him, “then you’ll die.”
Civil rights can be sorted out later, life and death decisions cannot be. If you are unarmed and fight a police officer, it will not end well for you, not matter what color your skin is.
As an active member of the medical field and required to have ACLS (among other certs), a ‘victim’ who can verbalize “I can’t breathe”… is in fact breathing. Presence of breathing + NYPD policy description of ‘choke holds’ = this wasn’t one.
As with a choking victim from whom you hear wheezing or whistling sounds, air is making it past the obstruction; whether it is enough air to calm the person until the item can be dislodged, is unique to the event.
Now, failing to render aid once he was down and clearly in distress… disgraceful and unconscionable in my book.
Comment Comment by Heliotrope
“Garner is dead because of 25¢ in New York cigarette taxes. The “social justice” geniuses now need to figure out how to handle the unintended consequences of the application of their nanny state spanking hands.”
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It isn’t that simple and your figures are way off.
NY tax on packs of cigs is $4.35 + 1.30 Federal plus possibly NYC tax as well. Retail woul be over $8.00 per pack /costing Garner approx 40¢ per cigarette.
If he was selling untaxed cigarettes off military installations or indian reservations or from other states with lower taxes (49 to pick from) Garner would have been violating several laws, none of which are misdemeanors. We might learn more on this from the grand jury records.
Several news sources reported he was selling cigs bought to homeless and drug addicts. Working on the assumption he bought cigs in NY, he would have no doubt sold them for an even $1.00 per cigarette because he wasn’t about to be standing on the street making change. If he averaged one sale per 5 minutes for 8 hours he generated $60 in profit or $7.50 and hour… <this is impossible to believe.
Either Garner was selling cigarettes for considerably more than $1.00 each OR he was trafficking no tax or out of state cigs OR he was doing something else in conjunction with the cigs to raise his profits from minimum wage levels.
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If Garner had been in an actual choke hold he would have been gasping desperately for breaths between words and sounded like this…………
"I……………………………Cant…………………………….Breathe………… and the gasps would have been as audible as his words.
This is a totally moot point because Garner said "i can't breathe" a total of nine times after the officer who supposedly had him in a choke hold was up and standing. I bet if there was any real investigation done, they would have found that Garner's 400 lb weight had been preventing him from sleeping totally reclined for several years. If he'd seen a doctor in the past decade they'd have warned him about his weight and dangers to his heart.
Assume the Grand Jury comprised of 40% minorities was all people who were sane and made their decision based on the evidence put before them.
Did the man’s actions (selling cigarettes illegally, I guess, though the video suggests something else entirely) warrant such treatment (being strangled and having someone plant your face to the concrete with their knee). Perhaps if he had raped or killed someone, but this is just tragic, excessive use of force. That the man was obese should play no role into how he was treated. Disgusting.
smdh
Perhaps I’ve become overly cynical, but the only thing I found surprising in this entire post was that even the saner sites I visit are now starting in on the whole “trigger warning” bag of nonsense.
Jesse Walker over at Reason arrives at this conclusion:
This libertarian ideal is based on the concept of “victimless” crimes being recast as harmless personal initiatives. Or something.
Under this frame of reference, selling a little sex or hootch or “looseys” is a transaction between consenting parties and the business of nobody else. There is a strong argument to be made for this point of view. However, there is also a conundrum buried in the core of the argument: How does the “decent” society arrive at a workable definition of “decency”?
First thing you know, a Garner type will show up at the recess yard selling looseys” or “joints” to the kiddies and people will start yelling about how that is not part of the “decent society” rubric.
Suppose Garner had based his business plan on buying a pack of cigarettes at full retail with the tax included and then selling the looseys at a dollar a stick. Then clearly he would be living off the idiocy of chumps who will feed a habit at a dollar a pop but not turn a trick for a full pack or a carton. That level of economic incompetence may exist, but does it exist in such numbers that a fat man can feed himself and six kids by working the gig?
The Feakonomics team looked into the income of “crack-selling mamma’s boys” and discovered that the street level suppliers are garnering very small change.
And then there is the tale of Million-Dollar Murray as written about by Malcom Gladwell in the February 13, 2006 issue of The New Yorker. The gist of the tale is the cost to [a decent?] society of giving welfare to these “free spirits”.
Has anyone made the case that Eric Garner was free from the state dole and supporting himself and his family while paying his social security “contributions” and income taxes from his little enterprise?
Huge Eric Garner was engaged in picayune, inconsequential loitering and catching piddling change for his efforts. It is how he chose to fritter his time away and to reconcile his existence as being worthy of living a life free of police interference.
I, for one, have always done some type of “Warning:” when posting a disturbing video. “Trigger warning” is just a trendy, unnecessary neologism that I happen to have given into. There are other trendy, unnecessary neologisms that I haven’t given into. For example, I won’t ever say “gifted” because we still have the perfectly good verb, “give”. (Try to find one single case where using “gifted” is an improvement on using “give” or “gave”. Hint, you can’t.) I also won’t ever say “meme” when we still have the perfectly good noun, “idea”. (Try to explain the difference between the two. Hint, there is none. Trendy people try to say “Oh, but memes are cultural components that spread among people like viruses” – in other words, THEY’RE IDEAS.) But it’s just arbitrary personal taste. V the K, for example, uses both “gifted” and “meme” (and I cringe every time 😉 ).
I think the police in this instance were negligent. I am bothered if reports are true that police did not administer aid after he collapsed.
Also, not sure of the specific charges here but wonder if a summons would have been sufficient. Although sounds like a summons would have turned into a pick up order for failure to appear.
Basic a lot about this case doesn’t sit well with me. This IMO is a far better example of police brutality and overreach than the Brown case.
And if we really want to take up the cause of poor policing then the case of the Connecticut woman shot by Capitol police seems to be the best.
I wonder if his “I can’t breath was related to the heart attack-shortness of breath is a symptom of heart attack.
Using one of the Libs ridiculous catch phrases or buzz words adds a fraction of humor, since we all know how they love them & just how ridiculous they are. In the same that I’ll often say, “my bad” or “oh no you didn’t” to parody those who don’t have a command of the English language. ILC is correct, I didn’t find it to be nonsense & everyone needs to be ready to see humor when it’s expressed.
He had sickle cell and was obese just laying someone like that on their belly can cause them to suffocate. Sickle cell is a major whammy to blacks systems but it lets them survive malaria without medication brought by Whitey.
I have been put in sleeper holds for training purposes and he was not in one long enough to pass out. Sleeper holds are banned by many big cities because people high on drugs don’t pass out until their heart stops. Cardiac arrest simply means the heart is stopped, you can have a pulse with no breathing for a short time, unless you are in cold water.
Real kicker Black female cop was in charge of the crime scene, and a black cop ordered the round up of cig tax cheats.
“Pantaleo who applied the lethal chokehold on Eric Garner was supervised by an African-American female NYPD sergeant…. As awful as Pantaleo’s actions appear on that video, at no time does that black sergeant order Pantaleo to stop choking Garner.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/decision-not-indict-eric-garner-death-disgrace-article-1.2032435
There are two issues with the Garner incident. Police brutality/excessive force & police discretion in busting a very, very minor crime.
There are three issues overall with the sporadic protests across the nation. Criminality & ignorance in the poor black community, police tactics/training & the fabrication of one non-innocent party’s (poor ignorant blacks) perceived treatment in their relations with law enforcement. There are no innocent parties; either the police or the blacks.
Further related: choke holds can indeed cause enough trauma to kill even a healthy & fit person. Through panic & a failure to subside during the detainment procedure.
Excessive use of force by police is an ongoing issue, which includes the use of tasers on anyone who doesn’t immediately agree with cops.
It’s a mistake not to take all these things into account.
That’s the key, for me. That, and the NY Nanny-State “was it worth it over cigarettes?” aspect. The rest of it is a “sh*t happens – sad” type of episode.