cops should never touch a suspect unless he is running away. they should get around him and wait he calls down, not even arguing with him. doing anything else would be provocation. they are the ones supposed to be in control.
when the suspect calms down only then they should cuff him if necessary. here, they attacked him at the moment he was the most distressed. it was a vicious attack, an abuse of power.
in the video we clearly see the chokehold wih 2 hands.
this never happens with a white person.
the pizzagate gunman got out of it alive even though he was armed, dangerous and crazy. a black man would have been shot on site.
I remind Barr white nationalist lives don't matter!
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Eric Garner absolutely did not die from a choke hold. A simple viewing of the attest video proves this fact. The officers arm was not even close to being locked around Garner's neck, which would have been necessary to squeeze shut a windpipe. This was a simple "hook and takedown" technique that countless martial arts and wrestling instructors teach on a regular. A "choke" hold is when you wrap your arm completely around , and hold your wrist with your free hand. "Locking" the hold and applying tremendous pressure by squeezing with all ones might. So let's stop with the dishonest choke hold narrative. Asthma attack, heart attack, whatever it was could not have been purposely inflicted by the arresting officer.
you should watch the video again. it was exactly what you describe as a chokehold. when Mr Garner was on the floor, we see both hands of the badly trained cop performing an unlawful chokehold.
@exo. No. I'm a competitive fighter. The act of speaking requires air flow across the vocal chords. That's why we "tap out" when an opponent administers a choke hold. You are unable to make a sound. Much less say "I give up" or "I can't breathe." several times.
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The representative from the DOJ was a bit misleading if my understanding of legal procedure is correct. He said that when prosecutors look at all the evidence they have to decide beyond a reasonable doubt if a crime was committed. I thought that law enforcers such as prosecutors only work under the legal burden of probable cause and it’s up to the trier of fact to determine if the evidence supports guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Therefore, under the lesser burden, the officer in this case could have been charged by prosecutors and a judge and jury determine his guilt.
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@SB
Legally I think your correct. Practically, as I understand it, prosecutors are extremely competitive and they want a high percentage of convictions on their resume. Also, they always say you can never predict what a jury will do. With all this in mind, they want a slam dunk case. I don’t think they are judged too harshly for not bringing charges. The fact that the feds in DC wanted to prosecute but the actual local fed prosecutors didn’t could be symptomatic of this. The local fed prosecutors didn’t want the “L” on their record. Human nature and law collide!
Ramsey Orta, the person who made the video tape, is also an interesting case. He had a past of criminal offenses. Not minor ones. And, it appears some police wanted revenge by locking him up. And, it appears that because of the prior charges it was pretty easy to convince a judge to lock him up. No big loss to society, right? Except, what does all this say about the quality and judgement of our police? Police, I would say, are definitely no better or worse than the people they are policing. We should stop giving them special treatment. Police can commit manslaughter like anyone else.
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@Waste
Police are filtered for mental disorders, etc... but after that I agree that in a general sense they are no better or no worse than the people they serve, but they must be given special privileges to commit violence on behalf of the state. This prevents mass violence you find in stateless societies. I can understand a cop lying for another cop or cops lying for a cop. They cover each other’s back in a real sense everyday. I don’t condone the lying but I understand it. Fortunately, since Eric Garner’s case body cams have become more prevalent. This will keep citizens and cops a little more honest. I guess Ramsey and the cops are trying to get revenge on each other. Ex-spouses do this with children. Football teams do this. Countries do this. It would be silly if it weren’t so prevalent and consequential.
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clearly those cops where badly trained and not in control.
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If Eric Garner was white and said “I can’t breathe” he’d be alive today.
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@Bob Rivera
Unfortunately white men are killed (in much lesser rates) by equally corrupt cops. Police brutality doesn't affect those with varying degrees of privilege. White men are killed less and rich white men pretty much aren't killed at all. In fact, if you're a rich white man who rapes children by the thousands in New York City, you get treated better then a black man selling loose cigarettes to poor people.
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@Bob Rivera No, he wouldn't be alive today! The guy resisted arrest and then died of a heart attack. The coroner found no evidence that he was choked. Quit pushing the same old tired false narrative. It's like listening to Black people say "white people are never shot by the police", when they are shot in fairly high numbers.
@Bob Rivera No. He wasn't choked. He couldn't breathe because he had asthma and heart disease. Both of which do not discriminate.
Justice will never be equal because this country was built with unequal measures. Based on the continued ignorance of civil rights, one can come to the conclusion that these laws were only put in place to silence those seeking equal justice. They were not actually meant to serve justice or propose equality. The outcome of this case is just another example. It's been decades since the beginning of the Civil Rights movement, yet the system's flaws are evermore evident.
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@A Hernandez
Eric didn’t obey the law by illegally selling cigarettes. In that instance, arresting him was “Justice.” He then resisted arrest. Did he deserve to die? No. Was it a violation of his civil rights to put him in a choke hold for resisting arrest? Certainly not. There is no federal civil rights case here. The family got $5.9 million for the unfortunate death of Mr. Garner. People get arrested for these violations every day and they don’t get put into choke holds because they don’t resist arrest. This is justice. Unless you know something about the details I am unaware of. I’m open to changing my mind.
@Meritocracy. He wasn't put in a chokehold. If he had been, he wouldn't have been able to make a sound. Much less speak words repetitively.
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@Edward Brown
Thanks for educating me.
Eric Garner worked himself in to a choke hold while resisting. Think how different things would have turned out if Eric simply obeyed police instructions and stopped his illegal activity.
Community policing only works with cooperation from the community. If the community allows open violation of the law, obstructs carrying out the law and resists even when wrong these type of incidents are inevitable.
I don’t want the police to back away from doing their job. Eric made this incident into a violent confrontation. He challenged the guardians of law because he was a big guy that thought he could. He can’t, cililized society can’t.
One of the reasons he felt he could is because his community encourages challenging the law in the streets, even when wrong.
So the police had a choice. Don’t do their job or respond to the escalation.
I commend the smaller police officer for doing his job against a bigger, clearly bent on resistance, Eric.
Eric knew he had breathing issues yet elected to disregard the law and then challenge it. He had enough air to start his challenge. I guess he thought the police would back off. Then he continued to fight. The cop was holding on for dear life while Eric was fighting as the instigator.
The outcome was initiated by Eric by failing to obey the law and resisting, during which we worked himself into a choke hold.
He wasn’t murdered, he was misguided and his distain for the law had a predictable unfortunate end.
Respect and obey the law!
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@Ken Wall
The guy was selling loose cigarettes. A harmless, victim less crime that does nothing but benefit poor people looking for cheap cigarettes. What community is going to self police victim less crimes, and why should they if the police are supposed to be enforcing the law?
Why is it when someone is killed for jaywalking, holding a toy gun, walking down the street, speeding, or selling lose cigarettes that all hurt nobody and half aren't even crimes but misdemeanors, people come out to justify it all as somehow a moral good? When did the law became morality?
Don't forget that the Anne Frank was killed because she didn't obey the law by being Jewish and the people who wanted her alive were breaking the law. We already see what that sort of thinking has done to the legal asylum seekers at the boarder, where pedophiles raping children is now just because they crossed an imaginary line in the literal sand.
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@Ken Wall Wow. What about innocent until proven guilty. You talk about a society of laws. Are police above the law? Garner was never tried because he was executed. Plain and simple. As such, the police killed an innocent man. There is no other way to interpret this outcome. Either you value our system of rules and laws, or you don't. Many countries in the world have "criminal" that resist. Ours is the oy "civilized" one that seems to have problems with police shooting people I the back and killing unarmed civilians.
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By putting to death Mr. Gardner for the crime of selling cigarettes on a sidewalk, the NYPD became judge, jury, and sentence enforcer for a crime so minor it should have resulted in a warning or citation at most. The senseless murders of people of color for offences that are non violent and do not endanger anyone else are disgusting, unjustified and it is well past time that law enforcement learn how to escalate events or suffer the consequences.
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If it walks like a duck and quacks like a dusk, it’s another whitewash scandal.
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