"When I came up as a rookie, you were assigned an older cop who had been around and knew what they were doing. We were taught that you catch more flies with honey. Basically, if you let the small things go — like the guy selling loosies or weed or whatever on the corner — then when the big shit happens, like homicide or burglary, those are the same guys who will tell you all about it. If they hate you, they won’t tell you shit.... Nowadays, since Kelly’s Operation Impact, rookies are taught one thing:
Write tickets, do searches, make money. They’ll have a quota they have to fill. They’re not supposed to, but they do. They come up not knowing their asses from their elbows. These rookies don’t understand how to let the small stuff go. They’ll be on your back for a bag of grass. So then when things happen, they overreact."
From
"'It’s Past the Point of No Return': An NYPD Officer Opens Up About What Went Wrong in the Eric Garner Case."
Ray Kelly was the NYC Police Commisioner.
Here's a Wall Street Journal article from last May about Operation Impact:
When 82 fresh-faced police officers arrive in Brooklyn's 79th Precinct this summer, they will become part of a successful but controversial tactic of flooding traditionally high-crime neighborhoods with rookies right from the academy. But this year, they will have company: The officers will be paired with veterans of the force and community leaders....
Operation Impact was created by former Commissioner Raymond Kelly. Supporters say it is a key tool in the historic crime decreases that have made New York one of safest big cities in the county....
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122 comments:
How many big cities are in that county?
Eric Garner died from overtaxation, overregulation, and overenforcement.
So the "catch more flies with honey" policy actually left crime at high levels until Ray Kelly came along to change the culture?
I didn't see an overreaction in the video. I see cops lawfully and rather calmly, but with brute force, arresting someone resisting arrest. I see the cops responding with a large force to arrest someone who had constantly been complained about by other citizens and who had a lengthy criminal record.
And it also wasn't a racist arrest, because the sergeant in charge of the arrest is a black woman.
That makes no sense.
Until Ray Kelly came along, crime was very high. It's gotten a lot lower since then.
The idea, under Rudy Giuliani was that if you enforce the small stuff, you get rid of the big stuff too. The Broken Window theory of police enforcement.
It worked.
Until Ray Kelly came along, crime was very high. It's gotten a lot lower since then.
Under DeBlasio, stop and frisk has gone away, and crime has still gone down.
No, t-man. NYC was already one of the safest big cities due to changes in the 90's and 00's. The NYC cop here is saying that now its about writing tickets for insignificant things and increasing cash. Now the trust is gone because the people who used to cooperate feel harassed.
NYC PD doesn't have field training officers? That's amazing, if true.
"garage mahal said...
Until Ray Kelly came along, crime was very high. It's gotten a lot lower since then.
Under DeBlasio, stop and frisk has gone away, and crime has still gone down."
Most of it attributed to the fact that they are not arresting for marijuana now. Other than that...some down, some, like shootings and car thefts, are up.
(1) Should there be a law against selling loose cigarettes?
(2) If such a law exists, should the police comissioner be instructing his department to enforce it, or should he be making a judgement that the law is too trivial and/or diverts resources from more important policing functions?
When you have a law that is violated in plain view, while the government routinely looks the other way, then you have our immigration situation.
If you think Ray Kelly was wrong for pressinng cops to enforce this NYC tax law, do you think Obama is right for telling the INS to stop enforcing US immigration law?
If you aren't going to enforce a law, get rid of the law.
Most of it attributed to the fact that they are not arresting for marijuana now. Other than that...some down, some, like shootings and car thefts, are up.
Nope
It didn't look like the police in the Garner incident lacked skilled supervision. There was a black female sergeant right there.
Under DeBlasio, stop and frisk has gone away, and crime has still gone down
Small sample size (for now).
It didn't look like the police in the Garner incident lacked skilled supervision. There was a black female sergeant right there.
Yeah, but was she "authentically black"?
Kelly was also commissioner in the Dinkins administration. Bratton, the current NYPD commish was also in that role from 1994-1996.
Things didn't get really better for NY until Howard Safir and Bernie Kerik held those roles (1996-2001)
So the "catch more flies with honey" policy actually left crime at high levels until Ray Kelly came along to change the culture?
No. Crime has been at low levels in NYC since the late 1990s.
There are a lot of reasons for the current crime statistics. Most of the reduction in crime rate came many years ago from Guliani's broken windows strategy and the ending of the crack epidemic.
The last 10 years or so, there's been a lot of petty BS harassment and a fair amount of the reduction in crime statistics comes from precincts under reporting and discouraging victims of crime from filing a report.
The Ray Kelly effect only became possible because of Bill Bratton's having eliminated the broken windows effect which Eric Garner embodied.
I was just responding to the second article quoted by Althouse:
"Operation Impact was created by former Commissioner Raymond Kelly. Supporters say it is a key tool in the historic crime decreases that have made New York one of safest big cities in the county."
I don't know one way or the other.
Whenever the society's rules turn into inane nonsense prohibiting innocent things, cherchez La Unions.
You will find commercial Monopolies enforced as LAWS carefully designed to to protect the powerful few.
But Scott Walker took them on and won.
Garage
Until Ray Kelly came along, crime was very high. It's gotten a lot lower since then.
"Under DeBlasio, stop and frisk has gone away, and crime has still gone down."
Are you sure about that? You ever set foot in NY? You familiar with the South Bronx and Harlem and the projects and the impact stop and frisk had on those areas, on making the residents feel half way safe?
I don't think you know anything about NY.
But Scott Walker took them on and won.
Not exactly true. Scott Walker specifically allowed the police to keep their unions and thus their monopoly.
Because Scott Walker is okay with public sector unions as long as those unions vote for and donate to Republicans.
Are you sure about that?
Check the link
You ever set foot in NY?
I've been to NYC maybe 15 times. I went every year at a previous job. That's been replaced with Las Vegas, unfortunately.
Rick Turley said:
Eric Garner died from overtaxation, overregulation, and overenforcement.
Seems to me, Mr. Garner died from overresisting.
“Every time you see me, you’re messing with me. I’m tired of it. This stops today,” says Garner. “Every time you see me, you wanna harass me. I told you last time, please just leave me alone.”
It's entirely possible that the zealous policing has both caused crime to go down and cause problems such as those at issue here. It's rare that something is either all good or all bad.
Does anybody know if the cops in NY have tasers? If so, why was this option not chosen?
I don't know enough about NYC and law enforcement in NYC to weigh in on the detail of the article. However, I find it interesting as it relates to HBO's fictional series about Baltimore LE (and more), The Wire. The Wire raised very similar issues more than a decade ago and where the writer's position would have been represented by some cops (chiefly, McNulty, Daniels, Freamon, Colvin and Griggs) whereas the writer's interpretation of Ray Kelly (again, not an expert on NYC, so don't know how closely it resembles the real Ray Kelly) would be more similar to some of the other cops on the show (chiefly, Burrell, Rawls, Landsman, and maybe Herc and an early Pryzbylewski and Carver).
For several years in Iraq, we faced a similar dynamic with a conventional US force- trained to find and destroy an opposing conventional force on a battlefield- that was struggling to implement the tactics and operations that would enable them to identify and defeat an asymmetric enemy that was blending into- and receiving sanctuary and support from- the local population. And then came Petraeus and the rise of the Cult of Counterinsurgency, which taught different (and ultimately far more successful) methods of securing the population and receiving the intelligence needed to isolate the enemy from the locals, thereby exposing the insurgents to precision targeting.
It's fascinating how similar these things can be.
The previous approach of letting small offenses slide - except when they didn't - was the best that cops could do on their own. But whether it's Kelly or some other guy, this is the obvious outcome when you make citizens navigate through a thicket of laws and regulations just to function every day.
If intrusive and petty laws are on the books, and if cops are expected to enforce laws, then cops will inevitably be required to use force to uphold those laws.
The fix is to get rid of the laws and remind people that there are some bad things the government cannot fix for you. But I don't see NY politicians demanding the repeal of stupid laws or defying federal pressure to make more of them, so this will continue to happen. Thanks, Progressives.
Because Scott Walker is okay with public sector unions as long as those unions vote for and donate to Republicans.
Then perhaps the other unions should take notice, and either donate to both political parties, or neither political party.
I continue to be amazed that people don't recognize how they're projecting after-incident data onto the police officer's before- or during-incident knowledge of the situation. The only way to know whether Michael Brown was armed was to frisk him after he was subdued; "unarmed" doesn't operate on the honor system.
Similarly, it's reasonable for a police officer to assume that a 400 pound man who's voluntarily placed himself within the act of committing a crime and where, further, he intends to forcibly resist arrest, has gone over his person check list and satisfied himself he's healthy enough to endure a police takedown.
The very worst thing that could come out of this Garner episode would be what we might call the Cleavon Little Effect, where criminals caught in the act of committing a crime scream out about some particular fragility, real or feigned, and law enforcement in response shuts down the surrounding blocks until the department's Giant Soft Cotton Tactical Glove can be trucked in to gently and safely embrace them into custody.
The "catch more flies with honey" policy sound like a synonymous with a "lets eat donuts" policy.
"Under DeBlasio, stop and frisk has gone away, and crime has still gone down."
How long has DeBlasio been Mayor ? Crime will make a big comeback unless Freakonomics was right about the reasons for the decline.
Just waded through the filth that is NYMag comments. These New York liberals are so entrenched in their cocoon of filthy leftism that they don't know their asshole from a hole in the ground.
Similarly, it's reasonable for a police officer to assume that a 400 pound man who's voluntarily placed himself within the act of committing a crime and where, further, he intends to forcibly resist arrest, has gone over his person check list and satisfied himself he's healthy enough to endure a police takedown.
Was Eric Garner in the act of committing a crime, or suspected of it? That's a big difference to me.
As usual garage playing footsie with statistics.
Or is he fisting it?
The "catch more flies with honey" policy sound like a synonymous with a "lets eat donuts" policy.
Possibly. But I think there's something to be said about police knowing their communities and working with them, rather than always assuming the adversarial role that so many seem to employ.
Also, I think police should be better trained in de-escalating situations.
I'd say a larger part of the problem is one of inertia, police continuing to use the tactics of the high crime era of 15 to 20 years ago that are no longer appropriate today.
In the Amadou Diallo case, the 4 police officers were trying to arrest a man they mistakenly thought was a serial rapist.
About the same number of officers were deployed in the arrest of Eric Garner for a very petty licensing infraction.
What's most shocking in the video is how quickly the level of police force escalates in the face of very little resistance from Garner.
Maybe it would have taken a single officer 15 minutes to convince Garner to come along peaceably. They didn't even try.
Because Scott Walker is okay with public sector unions as long as those unions vote for and donate to Republicans.
Vote and send money to Republicans, not Democrats, and you'll be just fine. Fitzgerald even came out and admitted it on the proposed "right to work" legislation. If you support Republicans you'll be exempt.
At Newsday: Shootings in NYC climb as other serious crimes fall:
"Shootings continue to rise in New York City this year, soaring to triple-digit increases at some Bronx and Brooklyn precincts even as other serious crimes continue to fall, according to the latest NYPD crime statistics.
Across the city, shootings have climbed by 13 percent over the same period last year, according to the data.
The number of victims in those shootings has climbed by nearly 12 percent over 2013, the data said."
"Vote and send money to Republicans, not Democrats, and you'll be just fine."
That is if you count being targeted for malicious prosecution for exercising your rights to be "fine."
garage: "I've been to NYC maybe 15 times. I went every year at a previous job. That's been replaced with Las Vegas, unfortunately"
For once garage and I are in agreement.
Las Vegas can be an incredibly depressing place once you are off the strip.
On the up side, there is usually a pick up rugby group you can latch on to as a visitor over at UNLV in the early evenings to more productively spend your time.
garage: "Vote and send money to Republicans, not Democrats, and you'll be just fine"
Hmmmm, I seem to recall there was some big story in the news recently and promoted endlessly and breathlessly by some online commenters related to an unconstitutional lawfare attack against republican donors by the entrenched WI dem machine which fairly emphatically puts the lie to garages latest hilariously false assertion.
Perhaps I am mistaken.
jacksonjay said...
Seems to me, Mr. Garner died from overresisting.
“Every time you see me, you’re messing with me. I’m tired of it. This stops today,” says Garner. “Every time you see me, you wanna harass me. I told you last time, please just leave me alone.”
-------------------------------
The incredibly high taxes NY on cigarettes and the inability to buy them in other than 20 count packs from certain retailers created a market for selling loosies. The police,charged with enforcing the related laws, and Eric Garner, responding to demand, met at the deadly confluence of these forces.
Perhaps I am mistaken.
You are.
So, just for clarification purposes, It's now totally cool to shut down bridges, right?
garage: "You are"
So those "John Doe" investigations in WI that you yourself referenced about a million times in attacking Scott Walker were not really in WI after all?
Sounds like garage's daily information/facts "Reset" went a bit too far this morning!
If crime continues to drop, then maybe DeBlasio is right and others are wrong. My guess, however, is that when certain people realize that they can walk around with a gun and not have to worry about being stopped and frisked, then they will walk around with a gun. And if they get dissed, they will pull out the gun and shoot the person who dissed them and maybe the mother sitting on a park bench because these things happen in the heat of the moment.......As a general rule, gang shootings don't inspire as much rage among black activists and liberals as does the misapplication of police force, so it's all to the good.
I saw the video of Ray Rice punching his girlfriend and dragging her body out of the elevator like a sack of garbage. It seemed to me that that was a profoundly more violent and disrespectful act than that of the cop......There was no one, not even the most militant feminists, who demanded that Rice face trial and prison time for his act. Can anyone name anyone who has advocated that Rice be banned from football for life.......Pantoleo has lost his job, his reputation, and has to worry about future DOJ prosecutions and civil suits. I don't think this task force was his idea, and I don't think that whoever thought up the idea for this task force will be held to account.. Perhaps he screwed up, but it didn't look like a gratuitously violent act.....There are disparities in the criminal justice system. They work to the favor of black celebrities and to the discomfort of white cops.
Once again we see that Democrats are capable of creating government, but incapable of governance...
There was no one, not even the most militant feminists, who demanded that Rice face trial and prison time for his act.
LOL. What?
NEVER tell a cop, "This stops today."
He might agree with you.
@garage: I'm legitimately curious. Do you think Panoleo deserves to go to jail for what he did? Do you think Ray Rice does not?
I would like to get clarity on whether or not Garner was being arrested for the charge of selling loosies/lucys in front of the store.
Part of the original story was that he was breaking up a fight, and that no cigarettes were found on his person?
Is this true?
William-
I believe a LOT of people would have liked to see Ray Rice both banned and go to jail.
Maybe you live in Baltimore.
"Maybe it would have taken a single officer 15 minutes to convince Garner to come along peaceably. They didn't even try."
That may be the single dumbest thing written on this blog, including the body of Garage's work.
What possible reason could an accused lawbreaker have to let himself be "reasoned" into surrendering like that? Especially one with a long record of priors in exactly the same offense? He knows it's illegal, he knows he can't get away with it, but he keeps doing it. What are you going to tell him that would change his behavior? In fact, the longer you "reason" with him the more convinced he will be that he's going to get away with. He has an "incentive" to act out further to compel you to leave him alone.
Barney Fife arguing with arrestees was for a TV comedy show.
Not a good model for New York City.
Is a public street a safe place. Yes and no.
It is safe for the gang that uses tacticsthat include beating trespassers. It is not safe for trespasssers on that gang's territory.
Statan Island is a white police gang's territory.
Ergo: the north has never integrated their neighborhoods and doesn't will to do so.
That has no effect on vote draw in the north for declaring opposition to southerners who are mythically still mean seregationists. Peter Pan never wants to grow up either.
I agree with left bank and Rick Turley. The fact that the taxes are so high created the illegal market the same way prohibition on booze made Al Capone a rich man or the gang violence created by the drug wars.
The NYPD compared to other departments is very professional. However, while we discuss the over reaction of the cop (really? A choke hold for loosies?), this is far too common as is rural cops in the middle of nowhere using tanks and body armor to deliver warrants. Read Radley Balko's column in WaPo or Reason (and at Cato) and you see how common overzealous use of force for months-violent crimes are. You can also see (Cato has a map) of how many times that use of force is used on THE WRONG house! Pets (the dog charged- yeah, because you broke the door down), and people accidentally injured or killed because an idiot 3 doors down violated his parole.
People die or are injured and the cops not only get away with it, but you find out that the cop with the gun had emotional problems and would weep at the gun range http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/12/cleveland_police_officer_who_s.html. Or was fired from his job as a cop in another county for incompetence, but somehow gets hired somewhere else.
This sickens me to no end. It would be nice if the MSM went after this story, because it's not just racial. Like this one http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/02/20/3309881/cop-shot-boy-holding-wii-controller-lawyer-alleges/
They draw their guns way too easily.
I would like to get clarity on whether or not Garner was being arrested for the charge of selling loosies/lucys in front of the store.
Me too. I googled a few times but I kept seeing the same general articles on the incident. I think the alleged law he broke was selling untaxed cigarettes, not selling "loose" cigarettes. He was denying that up until he was choked to death.
Auto correct changed non violent to moths for some reason...
Althouse still fails to directly address the key issue. Cops kill too many citizens. Why can't she address this issue directly and honestly? The statistics are straightforward, US cops kill citizens at a vastly greater rate than any other comparable country. Why do our cops get a pass for behavior that would not be tolerated in other countries?
But I think there's something to be said about police knowing their communities and working with them, rather than always assuming the adversarial role that so many seem to employ.
Also, I think police should be better trained in de-escalating situations.
I agree with both of these thing. The de-escalation would also help with people who are suicidal. I saw a great video a while back of a cop talking someone down who was acting eratically at a traffic stop. More of this would be nice.
BTW, how is it that the police Sargeant, who was in tactical charge of the "situation", was given immunity in order to facilitate the case against her subordinate who was operating under her supervision?
I wonder if some of the more experienced lawyers who are on the blog might weigh in on that and whether or not it is rare or more commonplace practice (with the standard caveat that no 2 cases are identical).
There are no comparable countries.
The United States of America has its own unique history.
and composition.
AReasonableMeltdown: "Althouse still fails to directly address the key issue. Cops kill too many citizens."
Perhaps.
I would certainly differentiate the citizens killed while actually firing at officers vs cases such as Garner.
It makes no sense whatsoever to conflate incidents where say, an armed robber is at a bank and firing into the air, with a guy selling loosies or creating a public disturbance.
Let's not forget that a black female police sergeant oversaw, directed and is ultimately responsible for the whole Garner incident.
But Kizzy Adoni has become Ralph Ellison's new Invisible Woman: unsuitable for the needs of any current progressive narrative, despite her rank, authority and presence on the scene in charge of the white police officers she simply does not exist.
Real black people are appearing more and more to be little more than novel toy dolls white progressives play out fantasy scenarios with.
"The Broken Window theory of police enforcement."
Read *Freakonomics.* It presents one of what are actually several compelling arguments for why the crime rate dropped during the time period Guiliani was in office, and the most sourced ones (that is, the ones less grounded in bragging than in evience) have nothing to do with Giuliani. I know it's a shocker that Giuliani took credit, but that doesn't make him right.
I will say this, the petty harassment from the last mayor was real. It was Bloomberg. Everything was about fines/revenue. You have to change the law to change the fines (req city council approval) so he just added to the fees. Especially for driving which Bloomberg hated (he prefers his helicopter because all the middle class ppl clog the roads!).
He started a traffic stop at the 59th street bridge on the 2nd ave approach to the upper level. 5 or 6 cops randomly (doubtful) pulled over for a "safety check." They pull you over and ask for your paperwork. then you sit there for 10 minutes fuming while they look to get you on something. What am I going to do? Refuse? It's so wrong.
In 25 years of driving around NYC I was never pulled over until 2006. Between 2008-2012 -8 times! 4 of them at the 59th st set up (of course they never found anything). Only one was an actual infraction (waiting 1 hr in a back up I cut thru a parking lot to get out of it). 2 I fought and won.
What they all had in common besides the 59th street bridge was a lone cop in a car looking for targets and I think my car, my age, my sex meant I wouldn't resist and I could afford to pay the ticket. My boss, driving his Aston Martin was told as much when he was pulled over for "driving to close" in stop and go bumper to bumper traffic. The cop said just pay it, you can afford it (almost $300). My boss was going to fight it, but it meant a day off work to go to the Bronx and yeah, he could afford it. It doesn't break me either, but it hurts financially. $150 for getting caught by the traffic camera for being momentarily in the bus lane the traffic cop put me in there to clear the crosswalk? Absurd. When they told me to do it again in the future, I refused and told them why. The traffic cop was so angry, but powerless he just told me in his heavy Pakistani accent that I was, "very very crazy!"
I know this is long. It is just infuriating.
Chris Rock: "How not to get your ass kicked by police"
It is just infuriating.
I believe you! I was only pulled over one time for no reason at all and it was all I could do to be polite, although I wasn't polite enough for him because he said later 'you should be nicer to cops'. !!!! God. Asshole.
(another time I was pulled over for kind of no reason, except I was driving aggressively into a parking lot because somebody pissed me off, so that one was half legit).
Auto correct changed non violent to moths for some reason
Maybe I'm overtired, but this sentence really, really cracked me up!
Hagar said...
There are no comparable countries.
This is silly.
I wish there were solid stats on police shootings/killings where the suspect was truly unarmed and truly posed no threat. As the commenter above noted, I don't mind if cops use deadly force to protect themselves from criminal combatants, nor do I mind if cops shoot and kill a criminal who is actively posing a threat to the community with a weapon of his/her own. But stats on situations like this one with Eric Garner are sorely missing from our national conversation. I support what Darren Wilson did to defend himself from Mike Brown - I truly believe that Brown was an imminent threat and since Wilson didn't have a Tazer (and pepper spray isn't going to stop a ~300lb charging man), he only had his gun to fall back on. But these other cases are getting to be too much.
I support Darren Wilson killing Mike Brown, cuz no tape available.
This cop strangling Eric Garner to death on tape? Mmmm. I don't know. Kinda iffy if ya ask me.
A long time ago, there was a Sierra game called Police Quest wherein the player was a police officer. In one incident, the player would pull over a speeding, belligerent pregnant woman. Pushing the woman to comply with signing the ticket would send her into labor, and the player would lose the game. The game assumed that policing required good judgement and an ability to distinguish between the levels of force appropriate to different offenses.
Shanna - I had similar things happen. One of the pull overs, the cop said, "do you know why you were pulled over?" No. I got the angriest look, but I didn't. He says, "improper turn." I said I am sorry, what was improper because, you know, I would like to avoid making the same mistake again. Oh, he was so angry. I wanted to say, sorry you got stuck in the BS traffic trap (which I found out that corner is because of the impossible signage and poor visibility around trucks).
Another time I find out as I am driving in, Obama is coming. Shoot. Too late. Then I see (dump trucks full of sand) Prez is meeting just outside my parking lot. Cops all over the side walk. I don't know if they will allow me in, or if I will be able to leave later. So I roll down my window, "Hello? Excuse me? May I pull in? hello?" The response was level 10 yell, "What are you saying to me?!!" Uncalled for. I was expecting a polite response, yes, but we will have to search your car or no ma'am, today there is no parking within 5 blocks in either direction." Nope.
I support Darren Wilson killing Mike Brown, cuz no tape available.
The situations are not comparable. Try harder.
Left Bank wrote;
"Maybe it would have taken a single officer 15 minutes to convince Garner to come along peaceably. They didn't even try."
How do you know they weren't their trying for 15 minutes to convince Garner to come along peaceably?
I think there is evidence that they were.
1) The fact that their were so many officers there makes me think it had been going on for awhile.
2) The video jumps a few times, as if it's been edited for time.
3) You can't hear what the officer is saying to him, but wouldn't it be reasonable to think his words are meant to get him to come along peaceably, which is why he's shouting back that they need to leave him alone?
My guess is that they spent at least 10 minutes, maybe much more time, talking to him and trying to get him to cooperate. That somewhere along those lines, Eric Garner got pissed and started his shouting. And it wasn't until he started his shouting that the video started rolling.
Do we know how long the Officers spoke to him before taking him down?
If they did speak to him for 15 minutes, does that change your mind on the whole thing?
The situations are not comparable. Try harder.
De-escalating situations.
Oh CatherineM! DC politician nonsense is a whole other category. You can't through here on the way to class because Gore is speaking. You can't cross the road because Hilary is in this building. I also accidentally almost ended up in Bush's motorcade once and the SS was NOT happy!
One of the pull overs, the cop said, "do you know why you were pulled over?" No. I got the angriest look, but I didn't. He says, "improper turn." I said I am sorry, what was improper because, you know, I would like to avoid making the same mistake again.
His response on why I was stopped? Quote: "I thought if I wasn't here, you would not have stopped". Mind you, this is a parking lot. The place I stopped had no stop sign at all, I only stopped to let him drive through. He was sitting parked, in a space that was the road, not a parking space, ie, not moving when he should have been, which is the reason I didn't see him at first. I stopped, then realized he wasn't moving, and started driving, then his lights came on. WTF. I said 'well, seeing as this is a parking lot and there is no stop sign, no I would not have stopped if no one was there'. He had nothing to say to that. Jerk.
I see garage has once again "reset" to the - there is no real evidence available - mode in the Michael Brown case.
Someone should just create a cd to help catch garage up each morning a la "50 First Dates" (i think that was the title)
"The incredibly high taxes NY on cigarettes and the inability to buy them in other than 20 count packs from certain retailers created a market for selling loosies. The police,charged with enforcing the related laws,"
This is an interesting parallel on the discussion of the enforcement of harassing taxa and fines for minor offenses that turned black residents of St Louis County against the police in Ferguson.
The left needs high taxes to fund the welfare state. This just might be a losing situation when the recipients are also the taxed and prosecuted.
Was Garner treated differently from other people? There was no cause to resist arrest. The situation did not escalate until the offender became uncooperative. At that point, discretion was no longer a viable option. That said, I wonder how people will respond to the IRS attempting to enforce funding of Obamacare. Pay your taxes.
De-escalating situations.
In general, I agree, but I have no real hard evidence of the Wilson/Brown confrontation to know whether or not Brown or Wilson initiated aggression, outside of the GJ testimony and the detailed forensics analysis (which is key.)
Forensics indicates that Brown's upper body was inside the patrol car initially. I doubt Wilson, from a seated position would be able to pull Brown into the car (Big Mike) while also attempting to protect his gun.
It seems reasonable to me that Brown made some very awful choices that day. While eyewitness accounts vary, the most credible witness (to me) was Witness 10, an African-American male.
To wit, Garner's case appears to be instigated by police who are somewhat tired of his routine (previous record, similar 'crimes.') looking for any reason to take him in. No loose cigarettes were found on his person at the time of death.
The Rice case, as the evidence seemingly shows, was abject police failure, and should result in an indictment.
Eric has agood point. Were the uniformed cops there in response to someone making a 911 call about the plainclothes squad arguing with Garner?
Michael K:
They need to compensate for marginal and unemployed citizens and immigrants, legal and illegal (despite Obama's assurances), which is endemic to diverse, high-density population centers.
The passage of Obamacare (i.e. national redistribution) was critical to relieve anxiety. The maintenance of trillion dollar deficits is critical to keeping up appearances. There needs to be a national conversation that will, unfortunately, never take place under threat of emotional appeals, executive action, judicial decrees, activist/anarchist disruptions, etc.
That said, I wonder how people will respond to the IRS attempting to enforce funding of Obamacare. Pay your taxes.
This is one of the parts of this story I find to be incredibly irresponsible. Some of on the right are saying, "If you can't protest, then don't protest Obamacare."
Specifically, Dana Loesch was saying this on twitter the other night.
In other words, she was equating Eric Garners resisting arrest with protesting the law for which he was being arrested.
Look, the time to protest is during elections, perhaps marches in the streets, through lawsuits in the courts, etc.
When the cops come to arrest you? That's not a good time to protest.
Just read an article by a guy who used to work in a mental institution, and he says that deaths from chest compression is a problem in hospitals and such institutions where they frquently have to restrain people, but the medical staff has not been taught techniques to avoid chest compression.
Now if that is so, should a NYC street cop be expected to know about that?
And as for the grand jury - the ME comes up and says that Mr. Garner did not die from the chokehold, which wasn't a chokehold anyway, but from lying face down on the sidewalk with all those cops on top of him, the same cops that you gave immunity to so that they could testify against Officer Pantoleo?
Oops?
If something like this happened, I doubt that grand jury transcript will ever be made public.
Because we believe the lives we present to others in our Facebook and Instagram pages, we naturally assume one cell phone video has accurately captured the totality of the history of situation while burrowing all the way down to the respiratory level.
Amazing things, those phone cams.
The police officer quoted in the OP is completely, categorically wrong. You cannot control crime by allowing people to break the law, no matter how petty, and hoping that they will then somehow trade this immunity from enforcement for information on major crime. That is bad policy and bad tactics.
Next, what Mr Garner was doing was buying or otherwise obtaining cigarettes from a non-tax state like North Carolina, and then removing the packaging to disguise that fact, and selling the cigarettes individually for a profit, in competition with legal and licensed stores, who undoubtedly complained. The cops were only doing their job, in response to complaints from small business owners who followed the rules.
Finally, when an arrestee tell the police, in public, as Garner did "I'm not going." and "You're not taking me to jail." what would you have the cops do? Let him walk away? Wrestle with a 300 pound guy for awhile, and end up beating the tar out of him? Garner died because he was in poor health, was overweight and had asthma. If you tell the cops "You're not taking me to jail today" when you suffer from a plethora of health issues, there are reasonably potential consequences. Mr Garner decided to break the law, and then decided to resist arrest, when he clearly and obviously towers over the cops. Someone offer a reasonable alternative and we can have a conversation.
Pantaleo apparently testified that he had spent five minutes trying to talk Garner down before they moved in to do so forcibly. Please note that there was a large plate glass window behind Garner, and the police had no way of knowing whether or not he would escalate his resistance. Pantaleo had the great bad luck of this happening in the Ferguson environment. Many of those who exonerated Wilson feel that by slamming Pantaleo they can now establish their credibility as fair minded citizens in pursuit of justice....This situation was obviously a screw up, but I just don't think Pantaleo is a criminal. I repeat my earlier question to whoever will answer it: why should Pantaleo go to jail and Ray Rice not?
garage mahal said...
"He was denying that up until he was choked to death."
"This cop strangling Eric Garner to death on tape?"
What a bunch of bullshit as usual.
Eric Gardner was not choked to death. There was zero injury to his trachea. He likely wasn't choked at all.
Strangled to death on tape?!
Wow.
Is that like how Michael Brown was shot for aggressively studying for the SAT?
"Eric Garner, the Staten Island dad who complained that he couldn’t breathe as he was subdued by cops, died from compression of the neck, the medical examiner said Friday.
The autopsy also found that compressions to the chest and “prone positioning during physical restraint by police” killed Garner. The manner of death, according to the medical examiner, was homicide".
garage - I also think it was a homicide. But the grand jury didn't, so suck it.
"The autopsy also found that compressions to the chest and “prone positioning during physical restraint by police” killed Garner. "
That's interesting, garage. Thanks. Now I am less critical of the cop.
I still think a cigarette tax is a piss poor reason to forcibly arrest somebody but 400 pound guys do not do well lying on their chests. Better to allow them to escort him to the squad car and worry about the fine later.
This is not the first case of a fat guy suffocating I've seen.
We've gone from the Demonic Hulk Hogan defense to the Fat Albert defense. Way to to guys. Way to look out for the average guy.
It is incredible to me that on an ostensibly law orientated blog we can't get the moderator to make a straightforward statement regarding the homicide of an unarmed citizen by a cop. There is no ambiguity surrounding this homicide since we can all watch it unfold on YouTube and the coroner's report confirms the commonsense understanding of what we saw with our own eyes.
Is she for it or against it?
BarrySanders wrote:
Now the trust is gone because the people who used to cooperate feel harassed.
Right because until this moment anti cop types weren't calling cops pigs.
Trashauler wrote: It didn't look like the police in the Garner incident lacked skilled supervision. There was a black female sergeant right there.
Strange how she seems to not be shown in the video. it's almost like they cut it or something.
EMD wrote:
Was Eric Garner in the act of committing a crime, or suspected of it? That's a big difference to me.
Well the cops came because of a complaint and I think he cops saw him selling the cigarettes when they arrived.
Lars Polenta wrote:
Does anybody know if the cops in NY have tasers? If so, why was this option not chosen?
people have died from being tasked. (Don't rase me bro!) and many would make the same argument "You tased someone for selling a single cigarette! Come see the violence inherent in the system. Help Help I'm being repressed!"
Left bank of charles wrote:
What's most shocking in the video is how quickly the level of police force escalates in the face of very little resistance from Garner.
Maybe it would have taken a single officer 15 minutes to convince Garner to come along peaceably. They didn't even try.
YOu're a victim of propaganda. You are witnessing the video tape and assuming that was the start of the incident. In fact a few officers were on the scene and waited for others to arrive before trying to arrest him. None of which was shown on the video.
Areasonableman wrote:
It is incredible to me that on an ostensibly law orientated blog we can't get the moderator to make a straightforward statement regarding the homicide of an unarmed citizen by a cop.
because, just because someone dies doesn't mean that cops are necessarily negligent. There is no indication that cops are being racist. or used excessive force. All the did was apply enough force to bring him to the ground. No one threw extra punches or shot him in the back. And no one expected him to die. In the case of Brown there's at least the argument that the cop INTENTIONALLY shot Brown in the back. (even though that wasn't the case). And yet again, the usual crowd turns the incident into a racial issue that confirm how racist the state is.
"This cop strangling Eric Garner to death on tape?"
What tape are you watching.
"So the 'catch more flies with honey' policy actually left crime at high levels until Ray Kelly came along to change the culture? "
No.
The crime rates were dropping in NYC before Ray Kelly headed the police department, before even that asshole Giuliani was mayor. It was not singular to New York, but was happening in cities across the nation around the same time, and continued for years nationally.
"Are you sure about that? You ever set foot in NY? You familiar with the South Bronx and Harlem and the projects and the impact stop and frisk had on those areas, on making the residents feel half way safe?
"I don't think you know anything about NY."
Do you? NYC is very safe, as big cities go, with historically low crime rates presently.
Keep in mind that "homicide" is the generic term for death caused by another person. That is what it means - death of a human. It does not address whether or not the death was legally justified. If someone shoots at you, and you, in self-defense, shoot back and kill them, the corner will typically rule that a homicide. Not murder or manslaughter, which are legal determinations, but homicide. For a coroner, the alternative to homicide is death by natural causes.
"You cannot control crime by allowing people to break the law, no matter how petty, and hoping that they will then somehow trade this immunity from enforcement for information on major crime. That is bad policy and bad tactics."
You might control crime by by having your police be petty, aggressive dicks who escalate their tactics to 10 instantly and without modulation, but you're going to sow a lot of resentment and hatred for the police among the population who are subject to their dickery. Letting the little things go will probably cause some good will, let the people know the cops can and will be reasonable, and will almost certainly result in fewer cases such as Garner's or Brown's.
If the people fear and hate the police, you will have disorder; if the people can (at least to a degree) trust the cops and know their is some reciprocal respect, you will have a more cooperative citizenry.
If cops behaved in white neighborhoods they way they behave in black neighborhoods, you would see much the same resentment and hostility from the white residents. Humans are all the same and all detest feeling belittled and abused.
eric:
I don't suggest an illegal insurrection. I simply note the protests from right and especially from the left to excessive taxation. Clearly the issue has not been settled.
Cook: "You might control crime by by having your police be petty, aggressive dicks who escalate their tactics to 10 instantly and without modulation..."
There are reports that the police spent 5 minutes talking to Garner before proceeding to arrest him for breaking the laws that the lefties in NY decided were fab-u-lous.
"If cops behaved in white neighborhoods they way they behave in black neighborhoods, you would see much the same resentment and hostility from the white residents. Humans are all the same and all detest feeling belittled and abused."
So, white neighborhoods have the same level of crime and the same amount of shooting of young men ?
You need help.
Cook: "If cops behaved in white neighborhoods they way they behave in black neighborhoods, you would see much the same resentment and hostility from the white residents."
Now, continue the thought and make the comparison about relative crime rates in "white neighborhoods" vs "black neighborhoods".
Go ahead.
We'll wait.
Cook: "Humans are all the same ..."
It's a good thing crack isn't here otherwise he'd set that white-boy Cookie straight about that!
@ Robert Cook -
"...petty, aggressive dicks who escalate their tactics to 10 instantly..."
OK, did you watch the entire video? You know, the one that shows Garner loudly telling everyone "I'm not going to jail today. You're not taking me today." as he backed up against the wall. The cops stood around and talked to him for several minutes and he got louder and louder, pulled his hands away, so who and when were the aggressive dicks who went to 10?
I'll repeat my question: What did you want the cops to do? Let Garner go? Let him continue to break the law, maybe tell the business owners who obey the rules "Too bad", because if we arrest Garner for breaking the law, he might resist, get hurt, and we'll get in trouble.
Don't break the law, especially for profit. if you get arrested, don't resist, especially when you're clearly and obviously breaking the law. Don't get into fights you know you're going to lose, especially when you're in poor health.
If someone was standing in front of my house, selling cigarettes illegally, you are damned correct I'd want the cops there hauling him or her away. Letting little crimes slide doesn't create good will; it creates contempt for the hypocrisy of government that ignores its own rules. Reasonable is treating someone fairly. That means only arresting people who break the law and only using force when someone resists lawful arrest. Reasonable is not allowing peope to flaunt the law. Which ways do cops behave differently in different ethnic neighborhoods? Is that based on your own personal experience, or have you been reading Salon, watching MSNBC, you know...just curious.
It is dispiriting to see so many people celebrate the use of state power. He was Fat! He resisted! He was a criminal!
Watch the video. Was he choked? No. But Garner said he couldn't breath. He was obviously not breathing. Or responding. Those officers had enough training to know how to check and clear his airway and perform CPR. They knew how to position him to ease respiratory distress. He died because they were negligent at best and indifferent at worst. We don't need enforcers and state fine collectors. We need officers who keep the peace.
Most importantly they didn't mean to kill him. But they did kill him.
I will also point out that the Boston Tea Party was a tax rebellion. Pretty soon the IRS is going to start trying to enforce Obamacare and I am going to be cheering on the coming tax rebellion that will spark. I also support people like Garner who avoid and fight absurd and punitive taxes like the New York cigarette taxes. It is the same state power and we are all citizens that need to fight it.
JCCamp said...
"I'll repeat my question: What did you want the cops to do? Let Garner go?"
They shouldn't have bothered him in the first place. There was never anything worth fighting about.
"Someone offer a reasonable alternative and we can have a conversation."
We have peace officers, not law enforcement officers. We stop passing punitive taxes and fine structures whose goals are to turn peaceful citizens into sources of revenue. And when governments step over the line we put them back in their place together rather than group up by tribe/race.
Achilles:
Seriously? They shouldn't have bothered him? You do know they were called by the merchant whose store he was standing in front of? What should they have said to that merchant?
Or maybe you think when he said, "I'm not going anywhere....This stops today, etc." they should have said, "yes, sir, we're so sorry to bother you." and walked away?
What planet are you from? Either that, or, knowing nothing of the facts, you choose to opine on an attorney's blog. Wow.
First: "The manner of death, according to the medical examiner, was homicide"."
Of course it was. Homicide simply means the killing of a human by another human agency. It does not imply wrongdoing or criminal act. If someone runs out in front of your car, and you run over them, that's a homicide. If someone breaks into your home, and you shoot them in self-defense, that's a homicide.
Next: "They shouldn't have bothered him in the first place." That is, frankly, so stupid as to be beyond comment.
Third: "There was never anything worth fighting about." I agree, so why did Garner fight?
Last: "...stop passing punitive taxes..." NYC may be the most expensive place to live in the entire country, because it may also be the most controlled place in the entire country. Rent controls, union pensions, Deblasio's war on charter schools, mass transit, the entire NYC welfare structure, free pre-school, corruption rife in the City bureaucracy, etc etc. Someone has to pay for all that. Find a republican or conservative elected official within the five boroughs? Not likely.
So, who's arguing about the taxes and Garner's death? Please.
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