When Garner refused orders to put his hands behind his back, one of the plainclothes cops... got behind him and put him in a chokehold, the footage shows.
A struggle ensued as three uniformed officers joined in on the arrest, knocking the man to the ground. He screamed, “I can’t breathe!” six times before he went silent and paramedics were called.
“They jumped him and they were choking him. He was foaming at the mouth,” [Ramsey Orta, 22, who shot the video, said.] “And that’s it, he was done. The cops were saying, ‘No, he’s OK, he’s OK.” He wasn’t OK.”
July 18, 2014
"Every time you see me you want to mess with me. I’m tired of it. It stops today!"
Proclaimed Eric Garner, shortly before his death.
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72 comments:
I'm sure the police will investigate themselves and find no fault.
IF he can talk he can breath. My bet is that he had an MI.
It stopped.
The government is always right. He should have obeyed.
"Every time you see me you want to mess with me."
Being black - online or off - it's the same,..
How did that no-think, emotional instinctive hatred of cops work out for you, dude?
I think your culture let you down.
Murder.
It's an everyday thing here,...
He'll leave a large estate to his family. The lawsuit will be settled for millions.......Can I read any significance into the fact that you blogged about this and not the recent ambush murder of a Jersey City cop?
All for the sin a selling some untaxed cigarettes and weed.
Normally law enforcement uses a type of chokehold called a sleeperhold, where I guess the idea is to restrict bloodflow until the suspect blacks out rather than cut off air, assuming it's properly applied. But the victim here suffered from sleep apnea and asthma so I'm sure that played a part.
In other words, a chonic criminal, with three pending court cases and a history of breathing problems, resists the police and dies while being subdued. What were the police supposed to do...just let him walk away?
Tie this story into the Black professor in Arizona, the shrine to the cop killer in Jersey City...hell Rodney King. Now consider "snitches get stitches" and innercity violence.
What do they all have in common....the Black community hurting itself because of it's refusal to respect and cooperate with the police.
It might not have happened if the NYPD and other police departments hadn't watered down their physical standards to a ludicrous degree. Look at the first cop to interact with the suspect, he is so pathetically scrawny OF COURSE no one will find him intimidating. That means less compliance.
Peter
What were the police supposed to do...just let him walk away?
There should be an alternative to letting him walk away and killing him.
Maybe the time to call paramedics is at the same time you call for backup to attempt a dangerous takedown.
I didn't see video -- or any mention in the article -- of police performing CPR until paramedics arrived. Do they not have basic first aid training?
Why are the cops at the start of the video dressed like punks? How the hell are the general public to identify an authority figure if he's tatted-up and wearing short pants?
I'm not saying the cops were justified, but how much of a death wish do you have when you defy a group of armed men who basically have a license to kill?
".the Black community hurting itself because of it's refusal to respect and cooperate with the police."
I have to disagree here. The young black men who are committing the crimes, especially the murders, are one problem. Out of condition cops who are too aggressive are another. Why not give the guy a citation ? They would have to have found the cigarettes, of course, and they weren't there. Still, there was no reason why they had to take him into custody.
Death and taxes.
In other words, a chonic criminal, with three pending court cases and a history of breathing problems, resists the police and dies while being subdued. What were the police supposed to do...just let him walk away?
The most obvious thing they should have done is NOT use a chokehold, which is very dangerous and against department regulations. Overpowering him and wrestling him to the ground would have been just as effective and much safer.
Peter
There should be an alternative to letting him walk away and killing him.
Yes, I believe it’s called “obey the law.”
Police officials said Garner had a history of arrests for selling untaxed cigarettes.
Death and taxes.
Police officials said Garner had a history of arrests for selling untaxed cigarettes.
Death and taxes.
"Can I read any significance into the fact that you blogged about this and not the recent ambush murder of a Jersey City cop?"
I used to teach the law school course Evidence, and I remember a section on the absence of evidence, that is, when is there probative value to the absence of something happening. The case was about, I seem to remember, the absence of complaints about a passenger train being cold. Did that have probative value on the issue of whether the heating system was broken (or something)?
Anyway, the point is, you'd need more information in order to have any idea what to make of my failure to blog something, mainly, was I even aware of that other story. In this case, I was not. So my selection of this story instead of something else is a nonevent.
I'm interested in chokeholds because I've been teaching the 1983 Supreme Court case Los Angeles v. Lyons since 1984, when I taught my first law school course.
I'm sure Crack remembers what happened in L.A. back then.
From Justice Marshall's dissenting opinion:
Although the city instructs its officers that use of a chokehold does not constitute deadly force, since 1975 no less than 16 persons have died following the use of a chokehold by [461 U.S. 95, 116] an LAPD police officer. Twelve have been Negro males. 3 The evidence submitted to the District Court 4 established that for many years it has been the official policy of the city to permit police officers to employ chokeholds in a variety of situations where they face no threat of violence. In reported "altercations" between LAPD officers and citizens the chokeholds are used more frequently than any other means of physical restraint. 5 Between February 1975 and July 1980, LAPD officers applied chokeholds on at least 975 occasions, which represented more than three-quarters of the reported altercations. 6
It is undisputed that chokeholds pose a high and unpredictable risk of serious injury or death. Chokeholds are intended to bring a subject under control by causing pain and rendering him unconscious. Depending on the position of the officer's arm and the force applied, the victim's voluntary [461 U.S. 95, 117] or involuntary reaction, and his state of health, an officer may inadvertently crush the victim's larynx, trachea, or hyoid. The result may be death caused by either cardiac arrest or asphyxiation. 7 An LAPD officer described the reaction of a person to being choked as "do[ing] the chicken," [461 U.S. 95, 118] Exh. 44, p. 93, in reference apparently to the reactions of a chicken when its neck is wrung. The victim experiences extreme pain. His face turns blue as he is deprived of oxygen, he goes into spasmodic convulsions, his eyes roll back, his body wriggles, his feet kick up and down, and his arms move about wildly.
Although there has been no occasion to determine the precise contours of the city's chokehold policy, the evidence submitted to the District Court provides some indications. LAPD Training Officer Terry Speer testified that an officer is authorized to deploy a chokehold whenever he "feels that there's about to be a bodily attack made on him." App. 381 (emphasis added). A training bulletin states that "[c]ontrol holds . . . allow officers to subdue any resistance by the suspects." Exh. 47, p. 1 (emphasis added). In the proceedings below the city characterized its own policy as authorizing the use of chokeholds "`to gain control of a suspect who is violently resisting the officer or trying to escape,'" to "subdue any resistance by the suspects," 8 and to permit an officer, "where . . . resisted, but not necessarily threatened with serious bodily harm or death, . . . to subdue a suspect who forcibly resists an officer." (Emphasis added.) 9
The Lyons case is about standing. The plaintiff, Lyons, sought an injunction banning the use of the chokehold except where the police were threatened with death or severe bodily harm.
Lyons had been stopped for having a taillight burnt out on his car. He was found not to have standing because he didn't have an injury in fact that would be remedied by the relief that he sought. He had a past injury, which could be remedied by damages, but he didn't face a future injury.
The injury of fear of a future encounter with the police was considered insufficiently concrete to permit him to sue for the forward-looking relief.
If New York didn't have such absurdly high cigarette taxes, this tragedy would have been avoided.
I'd say that the chances that a 400 lb, 43 year-old blue collar guy has cardiac or respiratory issues are pretty high. Cops know that when a really heavy-set person is taken down, things can go bad, literally, in a heartbeat.
To take a guy like that down for a when picking him up for a serious crime or when he's threatening another person is one thing. But, for selling bootleg cigarettes? Especially when you can't find any on him, and a bystander tells you that the "perp" just broke up a fight?
For whatever reasons, good or bad, the police just didn't seem to like this guy & they let their dislike take the place of any real evidence. They acted based on that animus, and a man died.
I'd say a large award is due by the NYPD to the family, if not criminal charges against the cops, too.
Remember a post about 5 years ago on a CVS Drugstore manager in New York that ran after a shoplifter of a $2 toothbrush and killed him with a choke hold that he had learned in martial arts. He too was in deadly fear a man was trying to walk off.
A choke hold is a lethal weapon. It causes the larynx to swell shut and stops the victim from breathing. That is why they go limp...they are in the early stages of death.
As I recall the commentariat then, it was 97% certain that the shoplifter deserved to die. So these police should have no fear. They are, like 007, licensed to kill anything that moves.
The man died in custody. The police are wrong. The end.
There should be an alternative to letting him walk away and killing him.
There is one. It begins with the criminal cooperating instead of resisting.
Still, there was no reason why they had to take him into custody.
Granted for the sake of argument.
The next question:
Why wasn't he already in custody? He was a known, chronic criminal with three pending court cases.
was I even aware of that other story.(the ambush of the Jersey City cop and the shrine to the cop killer) In this case, I was not.
This speaks volumes. Either about Althouse, or about the media. I think it is probably the media.
The choke hold undoubtedly is dangerous. The main consideration should be how dangerous it is compared to alternate methods.
Has anyone died from a Taser or from pepper spray? I would think a couple or three officers armed with duct tape could incapacitate a man pretty easily.
traditionalguy said...
A choke hold is a lethal weapon. It causes the larynx to swell shut and stops the victim from breathing. That is why they go limp...they are in the early stages of death.
Most things that people think are choke holds are actually strangle holds. They don't cut off air to the lungs, they cut off blood to the brain. When properly applied they take about 6 seconds for the recipient to go unconscious.
If the officer was attempting to choke the man, or attempting to strangle him but failed to do the technique properly then it should be negligence on the part of the police. If the man died of a heart attack just due to struggling with the police then it is negligence on the part of the cheeseburger-industrial complex.
"It begins with the criminal cooperating instead of resisting."
My attitude here may be influenced by a case 40 years ago when a young single black man went to a party and met a woman who he offered to drive home. He had never been arrested and had a steady job while raising his 10 year old son.
They walked outside and encountered a group of LAPD officers who had staked out the woman because she had a boyfriend that they were looking for. Here she was with a black man. He was ordered to put his hands on top of his car and they were searching when somebody said, "Look out he's got a gun."
It was never determined who said it or who was supposed to have a gun. My patient didn't. He looked to his left to see what was going on and the cop shot him once in the side.
His boss kept his job for him for a year after until it was obvious he would never be able to resume.
He was left partially paralyzed and I cared for him for years after. He sued the city and I testified at the trial. He lost. Fifteen year later, Rodney King got millions for no significant injury.
"Has anyone died from a Taser or from pepper spray?"
Yes and yes.
One of the cops will do time. The man's family will get a big check.
Cops want you to do what they tell you to do and seem to be empowered to kill you if you don't.
A smart person, even in the throes of fury, even in the face of injustice, should heed the words of the police and comply. The danger is very real.
Tragic.
I think that if the police had acted with more poise and professionalism this could have been avoided. By the same token, if this man had acted with more civility, so too the end could have been avoided. The guy was big enough to scare the cops, and they probably weren't thinking so clearly. That's what happens when you get into a desperate struggle with someone bigger than you......How much imperfection are you willing to tolerate in a police officer versus the tolerance you're willing to extend to a street criminal?......The career of this cop is finished. The family of the deceased will walk away with millions. No justice. No peace.
If I was visiting that city and inadvertently broke one of its laws and in so doing was approached by that first young tattooed officer, I would not believe he was a police officer. And if I politely told him I did not believe he was a police officer with the authority to arrest me, would he kill me, too? I think maybe he and his buddies would! Killed not for resisting arrest but for questioning authority.
I'm interested in chokeholds...
If more citizens were trained in the proper techniques for escaping choke/sleeper holds (which involve testicle-crushing and eye-gouging,) cops would be more hesitant to use them. They might just shoot you instead, but they're reluctant to do that too, since it involves a lot of paperwork.
>>There should be an alternative to letting him walk away and killing him.
There is one. It begins with the criminal cooperating instead of resisting.
In America we say "suspect" prior to conviction.
Suppose instead of cigarette taxes the guy had a big sign that said "I don't pay Obamacare and neither should you". Feel free to imagine the person with different height, weight, gender...any other physical characteristic which might make him more sympathetic to you. The police come by and say "it's illegal to not pay your taxes. You're coming with us." And the person says "No." So the cops shoot him.
Same response from you? The one alternative to being let go or killed is full cooperation?
Every time you put someone in a sleeper hole, you are literally taking that persons life in your hands. You can hold too long and cause brain damage. You can bruise his neck and cut off the blood vessels to the brain. You can crush his windpipe.
This was a guy selling pot and cigs that fell off the back of a truck somewhere. Was it worth killing him?
Can the cops who did this live with it on their conscience?
Yes, he was stupid with his attitude. But sometimes cops need to step back and consider the situation.
Well, Garner was right about one thing. It stopped that day.
William,
"Can I read any significance into the fact that you blogged about this and not the recent ambush murder of a Jersey City cop?"
Just that black men being killed by police is pretty common and the ambush murder of cops isn't.
Black men ambushing cops to murder them.
Now that would be news,...
"Rodney King got millions for no significant injury."
I will never understand some people,...
YoungHegelian,
"For whatever reasons, good or bad, the police just didn't seem to like this guy & they let their dislike take the place of any real evidence. They acted based on that animus, and a man died."
Yep, in America - for some unknowable reason - that we simply can't understand,...
Gahrie,
"What do they all have in common....the Black community hurting itself because of it's refusal to respect and cooperate with the same misguided organization that started out as the slave patrols for runaways."
Why, oh why, won't black people just turn themselves over to an organization with so much honor in America?
It's a mystery,...
Gahrie - "What do they all have in common....the Black community hurting itself because of it's refusal to respect and cooperate with the police."
Exactly.
If physically resisting arrest is more common with big, belligerant blacks, then injury trauma will be more common with them as well.
The police in all nations are trained you NEVER capitulate to someone resisting arrest and let them walk away. You bring more and more force to bear until you prevail over the arrestee.
Same deal in prison. "No I am not going to go in that cell." "Yes you are". "I am 450 pounds, 6'8" and an angry black man who has killed people beating them up - make me!" And 8 corrections officers in a special squad swarm and force compliance."
Aside from the problems blacks have peacefully complying with arrest, add "really grossly fat perps" as a risk factor. You force a really obese person down to get control of them and make an arrest, it is just like a beached whale. Their own weight plus extra weight burden on land, grounded, with fat people - having other peoples weight on top and being in a high O2 using state due to lashing out...being out of shape???
Suffocation and choking is the outcome unless the burden is swiftly taken off the whale or fat person.
So this just affirms that really fat black people who resist arrest can get injured or die. It is an inner city behavior best discarded. But easier said than done....as black heroin usage despite the obvious damage everyone sees in junkies attests to. Or black mommas with 4 chilluns out of wedlock to multiple biodaddies continuing to happen in every ghetto or Section 8 blight - attests to.
And does pinning most of this on dumb black pathologies exhonorate the "Heroes in Blue"??? Of course not. But it takes some real dumbass mental and cultural problems to break the law and constantly try confronting the enforcers of the law with violence.
William,
"He'll leave a large estate to his family. The lawsuit will be settled for millions...…."
William,
"The family of the deceased will walk away with millions."
Michael,
"One of the cops will do time. The man's family will get a big check."
THEYRE SO SURE - BECAUSE AMERICA, RIGHT?
Michael K,
"A young single black man walked outside,...when somebody said, "Look out he's got a gun."
...He looked to his left to see what was going on and the cop shot him once in the side.
...He was left partially paralyzed and I cared for him for years after. He sued the city and I testified at the trial. He lost."
YOU ALL KNOW THIS COUNTRY SO WELL,...
Rae,
"Yes, he was stupid with his attitude."
White's historical and cultural ignorance surrounding the context of this nation - even in the face of one black death after another - is simply staggering.
Black men dying at the hand of white "authority figures" is so common you consider it natural, rather than the outrage it is, because whites squandered any authority they've claimed a long time ago.
Using slave catchers to enforce the law - only in America,..
Jay-walking, cigarettes, etc.
These guys are some serious crime fighters, alright,...
Michael said...
Cops want you to do what they tell you to do and seem to be empowered to kill you if you don't.
A smart person, even in the throes of fury, even in the face of injustice, should heed the words of the police and comply. The danger is very real.
Jesus, if I believed this I would leave the country. I won't live in a police state. You can deal with cops without being completely passive.
This was a guy selling pot and cigs that fell off the back of a truck somewhere. Was it worth killing him?
Maybe the guy should have asked himself “is selling drugs and stolen property really worth losing my life over?”
Where's the "men in shorts" tag?
I would dearly love some kind of non-snarky statement from MC without malice that expresses a problem that is current and not strictly historical. Although sometimes he is funny; I'm still chuckling over the idea the Obama was supposed to "solve" slavery.
There should be an alternative to letting him walk away and killing him.
There is one. It begins with the criminal cooperating instead of resisting.
In America we say "suspect" prior to conviction.
This guy was a chronic criminal with three open court cases. While he may have been suspected of breaking the law again, he was already a criminal.
It will be very hard to get unbiased juries for any criminal trials against these cops. While it is undergoing demographic changes, Staten Island is home to large numbers of police and firefighters, as well as to the white middle-class ethnics who still have some respect for the police. The prosecution's best bet would be to seek a transfer to another location, but that might be difficult.
Peter
If you can't breathe, how can you talk? Talking requires air moving through the larynx past the vocal cords, no?
If they're going to use them, the police should have to practice choke holds on each other until they they get it right.
Most police departments in the U S today prohibit the use of the Lateral Vascular Restraint (LVR) or misnamed "chokehold", probably more from a sense of potential liability than any perceived genuine high risk from its proper use. In this case, though, the arrestee was large, physically imposing and resisting arrest. I'm not sure what alternatives the cops had that would not have resulted in the same end. That may depend on the PM exam and cause of death. By the way, despite the scare headline in the link, I didn't see anyone banging the guy's head on the ground. I would suggest that if you intend on a continual violation of law, and further intend on resisting arrest (proclaiming "this ends today") while being asthmatic and in poor health, you might reasonably anticipate a poor outcome. I don't think the cops should reasonably have been expected to know that the 400 pound arrestee, resisting arrest , was actually at high risk for pulmonary and/or cardiac issues.
I feel terrible that the guy died, but if cops have a reason to arrest you and you resist they are going to to have to use force to bring you down.
One guy filming this says "they ar going to falsely arrest him for breaking up a fight", yet the cop says he saw the guy sell cigarettes (maybe to a minor) down the street.
For black people, this is exactly the way not to interact with cops. Don't say "why are you harassing me". If the cop saw you do something, then contest it in court. And if they go to arrest you don't say "don't touch me" and pull away, because cops will then need to use force to detain you.
This guy was a big 400 pounds, and so it took many officers to actually subdue him.
Nonaapod wrote:
All for the sin a selling some untaxed cigarettes and weed.
No. He was stopped for that reason. but the reason he died was because he didn't cooperate requiring cops to bring him to the ground.
If you are going to have cigarettes/pot legal you will also need to regulate cigarettes or pot. Then there will be times when cops have to enforce the regulation.
Like if someone sells cigs to a kid for example.
Normally these interactions don't involve cops bringing someone to the ground because they cooperate.
Madison Man wrote:
There should be an alternative to letting him walk away and killing him.
There was. It was him cooperating with the cops while they gave him a ticket or booked him.
AReasonableMan wrote:
Jesus, if I believed this I would leave the country. I won't live in a police state. You can deal with cops without being completely passive.
Even a free state has laws which their cops have to to enforce. If you consider that a police state, then you will always live in one.
Its crazy where we are going with our Monday morning quarterbacking of police in this country because of video. As if people have a clue about all the things that are happening under the surface. We have people in this thread who think they know the thoughts the police are having. We have crack talking crazy, as usual, and some normally rational people agreeing with him.
When it comes down to it, cops are just people. People with families and lives of their own. They go out to do a job and do it as safely as possible. If you resist, I'm going to use my training to stop you. Sadly, my training cannot account for every possible eventuality. And so every situation is different. And if you die while resisting, that's on you, not me.
We can have a discussion about whether or not we should have police, which crack seems to think we shouldn't. Or whether some laws ought to be ignored by police (do we really want police deciding which laws to enforce and which to ignore?) But pretending like a huge guy resisting arrest isn't a mortal threat?
Forget it. The guy shouldn't have done that. Now he is dead. Leave the officers alone. They were doing their jobs and their families are glad they returned home safe.
Unknown,
"I would dearly love some kind of non-snarky statement from MC without malice that expresses a problem that is current and not strictly historical."
Can't be done. It's like asking a guy, still living in the same house his wife died in, to forget she lived there. 400 years is a long time, and whites seem determined to do the impossible - sweep it under the rug - which is just a continuation of (and as crazy as) what they're trying to hide from.
Slavery was yesterday. Here's a guy whose father may have been a slave - that's not the long ago past whites claim.
There's no running away from it.
And that's neither my doing or my fault,...
The policing in the West Indies and, of course, Africa is not done with a noticeably lighter hand than here. So perhaps another dynamic other than that of racial oppression is at play......It was the Africans who introduced the institution of slavery to the Portugese, not the other way around. Europeans certainly commercialized it on a grand scale, but it was an established institution in Africa, practiced there since time immemorial. I believe that the Muslms introduced the idea that slaves should be treated humanely in accordance with the verses of the Koran, but the abolition of slavery was an idea introduced by western imperialists.....If Crack wishes to be authentic and loyal to his African roots, he should honor the institution of slavery and stop with this white devil emancipation crap.
Perspective is lost on police.
It should never be conceivable to kill someone for selling cigarettes.
Murder. Plain and simple. Cops couldn't just walk away.
AReasonableMan wrote:
Jesus, if I believed this I would leave the country. I won't live in a police state.
Too late.
eric,
"We have crack talking crazy, as usual, and some normally rational people agreeing with him.
When it comes down to it, cops are just people. People with families and lives of their own. They go out to do a job and do it as safely as possible."
I have three white friends, from high school, who became cops - none of my black friends did. One cop has always been cool, one has always been an asshole (he went on to become mayor of a rich California town) and one's always been a homicidal maniac.
The first thing the homicidal maniac did was volunteer to police the black neighborhood where I grew up. I left town.
That's "crazytalk"?
You pussies don't know anything about me, America, or life - you're coddled white pussies, talking shit, and nothing more. You have no life experience worth referencing, and all your talk is from a sheltered existence, where the white adults lied to you, so the horrible things they did to others seem palatable.
That's why you sound like escapees from an insane asylum - so little of it correlates with history, or the resale world - it's all a made-up fiction.
Your parents (and ancestors) damned even you with it all,...
jr565,
"I feel terrible that the guy died, but if cops have a reason to arrest you and you resist they are going to to have to use force to bring you down."
Your attitudes have made you a murderer, many times over, anyway, so who cares what you think?
I'll believe you'll "feel terrible" a black dies only when you realize your Burger King order is late,...
William,
"If Crack wishes to be authentic and loyal to his African roots,…"
Where do you white mental cases come up with this shit?
Who said I ever had "wishes to be authentic and loyal to his African roots,…"?
White people are insane and delusional - their racism makes them that way - and that's why they get the Alzheimer's,...
TML,
"Murder. Plain and simple. Cops couldn't just walk away."
And, as we can see, neither can their supporters. This is killing country (always has been) a bloodthirsty, murderous, continent of insecure white homicidal maniacs, who HAD TO HAVE LAWS MADE to slow them because - without anti-killing laws - behaving like normal human beings has always been out of the question.
That they support this obvious murder of a fellow citizen - for cigarettes or anything else - says all you need to know about white's past in this country.
They're disgusting people,...
I'm a Staten Islander and there's plenty of serious stuff going on in that area for the cops to handle instead of someone selling untaxed loosies.
When does "not cooperating with law enforcement" ever have a positive outcome? Some police stops may not be fair but I'm not willing to gamble on it in the street. Until we have RoboCop, we have police who are real people who are capable of making a questionable decision, just like any of us could. Sure, they have been trained, but nothing is perfect and you may fit the description of a murderer/rapist they are looking for. Better to cooperate and be in a controlled environment, like a court room if necessary to give your side.
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