Probably an Aunt Jemimah and a self-hater. Not authentically black, given her decision to go into law enforcement. Snitches getting stitches and all that.
At any rate, I haven’t written on the NY case here, but I did have a discussion on facebook yesterday in which one of my liberal friends concluded that I must be “fine” with murder, so long as it’s to black people. Which goes to show that there is no intellectual curiosity among many white liberals who presume to champion the wretched black man, no wish to defer any conclusions until we see what the grand jury saw — and so in the interim, to trust that the multi-racial, 23-member grand jury was acting, over 4 months of work, in good faith, and with more information and more focus than any of us have. The result of their convening — a no bill, even on lesser charges (which would have been politically expedient) — suggests that, based on the instructions they were given and their understanding of NY law and police protocols, no crime was committed in this case. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t: I haven’t had any opportunity to review the GJ transcripts because most haven’t been released. It only means that it is axiomatic that those who participated in the grand jury proceedings have more information regarding the case than do those of us on the outside looking in — many of whom easily jump to the position that we’re dealing with racist cops and black man who was doing very little worthy of death.
But those who are so quick to conclude that the officer murdered Garner, or at least was responsible for negligible homicide, do so at the expense of claiming more knowledge than the grand jury members charged with deciding whether there was sufficient evidence to indict and prosecute the officer. This isn’t about guilt or innocence. It’s about whether a case should be brought.
These same people also conflate correlation with causation, and introduce red herrings into the discussion: the type of crime committed has no bearing whatever on whether, after resisting arrest, Garner was met with excessive use of force. The choice police had was to either restrain him forcibly or, after he refused to be handcuffed, let him go — the latter of which represents a breakdown of law and order.
All that said, here is, based on what I’ve been able to glean so far (and it is obviously subject to change as more facts come to light), my brief opinion about the case:
Cops didn’t err, from how I understand the arrest / use of force protocols. In fact, they followed use of force protocol and got Garner’s hands restrained behind his back with a minimal use of force (another option at that point was pepper spray, which would have likely resulted in the same respiratory distress; this is moot, however, as it is Monday Morning quarterbacking). This was, then, an accident caused by a number of conditions coming together, but it was precipitated by several non-disputable factors: 1) NY passed confiscatory tax laws on cigarettes which disproportionately take choice away from the poor 2) As a result, Garner found a money-making niche, albeit one that NY made illegal (though they themselves re-sell confiscated non-taxed cigarettes. FOR THE SOCIAL JUSTICE!) 3) local merchants complained 4) Garner, being in conflict with the law, was arrested: police are responsible for keeping law and order. 5) he resisted arrest 6) being a large man, to subdue him required a certain use of force consistent with NYPD protocol. 6) That use of force, coupled with conditions about which the NYPD could not have possibly known — heart disease, asthma, hypertension, et al., — contributed to Garner’s death, as did his weight, which turned a restraint into something that caused trauma to his trachea. This was all noted by the coroner in his report. There is no civil rights case here — just posturing, pandering, surrendering to mobs led by race hustlers, and general political cravenness. There is no criminal case here, as the officer followed protocol. There is nothing here but a tragic death that needn’t have happened, spurred on initially by an iron-fisted, tax-hungry Democratic nanny state. If your complaint is with police protocols, note that the NYC Mayor, an avowed leftist, in September of this year didn’t wish to outlaw “choke holds” by police.
Bottom line: There was no intent to kill Garner, or at least no compelling evidence of such. Garner’s repetition that he couldn’t breathe was based on his positioning and prior health problems, and made worse by the forearm restraint and the application of weight on Garner to keep him subdued. “Choke holds” are mostly misidentified: choke holds are aimed at cutting off air intake and generally amount to a direct attack on the trachea. My own training has me using two fingers to grab around and compress the wind pipe, should I wish to “choke” someone. Strangles, on the other hand, cut of blood to the carotids. And during a well-executed strangle hold (like, eg., a rear naked “choke”), the ability to speak is greatly minimized and often impossible. This is why we see tap outs in MMA: they substituted non-verbal surrender for verbal surrender, the latter having become difficult or outright impossible.
Were I applying a loose strangle hold — a come along, as we call it, to command compliance without doing serious damage — and I heard “I can’t breathe,” I’d know that I was applying the hold loosely and without fear of cutting off blood to the carotids. This is still an effective way to subdue a much larger man — even without causing him to lose consciousness.
Positioning a man of Garner’s size on his stomach is necessary to get him cuffed with his hands behind his back. This is not necessary, obviously, when a person isn’t resisting arrest. Unfortunately, in this instance the weight applied, along with the arm around his neck while he was initially prone, created the conditions for his death.
Sometimes accidents happen. And were I part of the family of the victim I’d lash out too.
But my emotional response wouldn’t change the facts, as they currently line up. A lack of liberty in a world of entrepreneurial spirit led to Garner’s death. It was tragic. It just wasn’t criminal — though I believe many of the “laws” that we pass today are, in fact, just so.
(h/t Gateway Pundit)
It’s bullshit like this that has made me immune to bestowed guilt, and unconcerned about unacquainted others’ opinions of my character.
For some reason nobody misinterprets my current stock response: “Your opinion has been duly noted, and will be accorded all the respect it deserves. Now go make me a sammich.”
I’ll repost a comment I just left at Reynolds place where he links an article about “too many laws” …
This isn’t an either/or situation. Too many laws? Yep. Some law enforcement agencies having a militarized culture? Yep. Some LEOs not bounced when they should have been? Yep (look at Police Unions on that one).
Yet, how much crime and criminality do communities want to tolerate? It wasn’t the selling of “loosies” per se that killed Garner, but his resistance to cops telling him to stop it or else. (full tape is 13 minutes long) And as I understand it, the cops were called in by a local business.
Cops are told they cannot use discretion on what laws to enforce cuz DISCRIMINATION and people like Mike Brown are taught they are entitled & law doesn’t apply to them (ie the video of Brown manhandling the store clerk that dared to object to his helping himself to cigarellos)
It is a situation ripe for confrontations, sometimes with deadly consequences on both sides (see: Ryan Bonaminio – where it should be noted, not one White House or DOJ rep at his funeral)
I know with Prop 47 in CA a lot of LEOs are like “what’s the use?” as our crime rate is going up even more than it has since AB109.
Maybe LEOs should stop policing the communities that hate them and see what happens.
Police are poorly served by their union leadership, who care far more about today’s budgets and tomorrow’s pensions than they do about the quality of their LEOs, the nature of the laws they’re tasked to uphold, or the relationship between the Thin Blue Gang and the serfs who pay their protection money.
Urban blacks are poorly served by their leadership, who care far more about press conferences, demonstrations, blaming The Man for all their problems and looking for handouts than they do about promoting strong families, personal responsibility, work ethic, education, entrepreneurialism, or any of the other many avenues available for communities to work together to improve their situation.
Citizens in general are poorly served by their elected officials, who care far more about being seen “doing something” than they do about getting to root causes and implementing plans and policies that might sacrifice showiness for effectiveness.
I only wish I knew why all of these groups continue to put up with this nonsense year after year.
Some tv talkinghead moron or other let slip that Mr. Garner had multiple previous arrests on the same charge of selling unNYtaxed cigarettes. I was left to wonder what he had learned about being arrested on those occasions, and why he made his own choices, apparently differently, on this occasion. Don’t suppose we’ll ever know much about that beyond the mere existence of those previous arrests, such as their circumstances, the behaviors of the various participants, the outcomes and so on.
Maybe LEOs should stop policing the communities that hate them and see what happens.
I’d be fine with that, with the stipulation that they refrain from interfering with local efforts to police themselves. If they’re not going to arrest the thieves and murderers and drug dealers, then they can’t arrest the citizens who take care of the problems on their own.
Of course we know this will never happen. It’s one thing for Officer Friendly to stand by and smirk while the people he’s supposed to protect and serve are preyed upon by the animals in their midst. It’s quite another for him to look on as they do his job for him.
Besides which, he can be pretty confident that the leader of the local neighborhood watch isn’t going to put up a fuss as he’s shoved into the back of the cruiser.
squid
Those communities who “police themselves” don’t exist in the places that profess hatred towards LEOs. They would just become territory for one criminal gang or another to run.
See: Mexico
Additionally, the facts of either the Brown or Garner events DON’T MATTER …
Entirely by accident I ran into a curious or interesting tidbit of early history regarding police forces a couple of days ago, namely, that Henry Fielding the English novelist is credited (along with his brother John) with the institution of the first “police” force in London called the Bow Street Runners in his capacity as a magistrate over a district there in 1749.
whether or not it was criminal Mr. strangle cop should be fired i think
It’s good to keep a tradition of human sacrifice alive.
“The police are the public and the public are the police;
the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.”
– Robert Peel
This is the ethic we should be inculcating in the citizenry.
As an aside, I HATE hearing cops referring to ‘civilians’.
My response: “I’m more of a cop than you are a soldier.”.
Reminds me that most people seem to think that “murder” means “any death of which I strongly disapprove”.
People seem to be upset that Grand Jury wouldn’t indict (in both recent cases) for murder for a case where there is no chance in hell of a murder conviction.
But it’s “unjust” because it must be murder, because they really don’t like that the dead person died*.
(* And I don’t blame them, especially in the NY case, where the deceased appears to have been in no way deserving of death … which goes well with the police having no evident intention of killing him, at all.)
This is the ethic we should be inculcating in the citizenry.
Not since the 60s. The Left only supports “the pigs” at the Fed level enforcing Leftist dogma (arming agencies like EPA, Dept of Ag, etc)
I wasn’t aware that Garner’s trachea had been damaged. In fact, I thought I heard the opposite was the case.
Also, and to the larger, systemic point:
This was, then, an accident caused by a number of conditions coming together, but it was precipitated by several non-disputable factors: 1) NY passed confiscatory tax laws on cigarettes which disproportionately take choice away from the poor 2) As a result, Garner found a money-making niche, albeit one that NY made illegal (though they themselves re-sell confiscated non-taxed cigarettes. FOR THE SOCIAL JUSTICE!) 3) local merchants complained 4) Garner, being in conflict with the law, was arrested: police are responsible for keeping law and order.
This is why I think think drug legalization is bound to fail (over that “long run”: in which “we’re all dead” anyways). Don’t taze me bro, I’m just providing hospitality to the poor and underprivileged!
The only cop who deserves to be fired is Cleveland’s Quickdraw McGraw.
And that’s only because he shouldn’t have been hired in the first place, not because he shot that kid.
Finally, I’m no expert by any stretch of the imagination –not even by the I stayed at the Holiday Inn Express non-standard; but it looks to me like Mr. Garner was more in danger of having his jaw dislocated or broken by the “chokehold” than he was of having his either windpipe or carotid crushed.
I defer here to those better informed and/or trained.
bad things happen to stupid people.
Life is hard. It’s even harder when you’re stupid.
People who think they’re going to win a fight with cops are stupid. Even if you win the battle, you’re going to lose the war and you’re going to get hurt doing it.
“I can’t breathe” is something perps say all the time, regardless of pre-existing conditions or whether they can actually breathe. They also cry out in pain over nothing and complain loudly about “rough treatment” regardless of how they’re treated.
The cops hearing “I can’t breathe” would have chalked it up to the typical caterwauling of a perp, not recognized it as genuine respiratory distress.
“Situational asphyxia” is what got him, not a “choke hold.” A cop who (says he) researches these things called into Levin the other day and said that if the guy had gotten onto his belly voluntarily and stayed there, he’d still have died.
It’s a lousy way to go and a lousy situation. The guy’s 30 previous arrests were mostly for selling loosies.
This is your nanny state, libs. Lie in it.
People who think they’re going to win a fight with cops are stupid.
This was the umpteenth time the cops had come after him for this pissy little thing. I don’t blame him for getting agitated.
And that’s only because he shouldn’t have been hired in the first place, not because he shot that kid.
I’m gonna register a “both” on that. His unhirable conditions were what caused him to shoot the kid.
Who shoots a kid under those circs? Seriously?
Is it reasonable to say that “choke hold” is entirely the wrong term in this situation?
Because people keep repeating “choke hold choke hold choke hold” as if that were the cause, not the subsequent compression of chest & neck caused by him being down on the ground like that.
And whatever else they did.
“Choke hold” is inflammatory. They took him down. Being down caused his death.
* urp *
$10M settlement for man shoved into wall by King Co. deputy; jurors react to video
I believe Garner’s family will get a settlement.
Energy spent resisting a cop in a questionable-arrest situation is energy better spent plotting to have your lawyer harvest his badge.
Of course all these supposed victims will get money. This is big business. Sharpton and Jackson are the CEO and CFO. The Congressional Black Caucus is the board of directors. This is what it is. Nothing more nothing less.
Me. If those circumstances involve a 12 year old pointing an airsoft pistol at me that’s indistinguishable from The Real Deal (TM) because the orange safety tip has been removed.
What the actual circumstances were, of course, we don’t know yet. And it’s possible we may never know.
Nor do I. But you’re just not going to win that argument, especially when you’re so outnumbered.
What the actual circumstances were, of course, we don’t know yet.
The person who called the cops said it was possible the gun was a toy.
So.
Well they did err. It wasn’t a criminal error but it was error all the same.
That type of restraint is extremely dangerous for heavy people with central obesity and pre-existing breathing problems. His complaints were not attended and his restraint was not adapted when he exibited objective signs of distress.
He should have been rolled on his side once cuffed.
They killed him, and they killed him because they stopped him getting enough air. It was avoidable.
My understanding is that piece of information wasn’t passed on to the responding officers.
[…] Jeff Goldstein is a Traditional Wrestling coach and is trained in self-defense techniques: […]
Personally, I think any talk about the stupidity of NY tax law or the prissiness of the crime Garner committed is silly at best, and at worst smacks of the ugly shit the left does, that is, exploiting a tragedy for political ideology. This case is about a guy that resisted lawful arrest when he shouldn’t have, nothing more.
It’s like a cop pulls a car over for doing 70mph in a 60 zone, and then the driver zooms away when the cop approaches the car. Cop pursues, driver crashes and dies.
The situation ain’t ‘cuz of the posted speed limit.
People who think they’re going to win a fight with cops are stupid. Even if you win the battle, you’re going to lose the war and you’re going to get hurt doing it.
I’ll readily grant that most people are going to lose their battles with the cops. But I’m going to take exception with the idea that we should be resigned to losing the war against the cops. I don’t believe it’s futile to insist that our local police change their culture to one that has greater respect for the communities they serve. I don’t think it’s a lost cause to convince good cops and their managers to drum out the bad cops in their midst.
Garbage men get paid a pretty good wage, because the work they do is dirty and nasty, the sort of unpleasant yet truly necessary work that is required for the rest of us to live in the comforts of civilization. We can knock the cops off the pedestal they’ve built for themselves, and teach them and our neighbors that law enforcement is as noble as trash collection, for similar reasons. It’s a war worth fighting.
No. It’s because in a 3 Felonies A Day world, resistance is futile when you spit on the sidewalk:
And I don’t agree that the officers in this incident are bad cops.
But Di Blasio kinda reminds me of a bad dog owner.
No such inference intended. I’m referring strictly to the nose-to-nose on the street encounter. We cannot and should not ever forget who works for who and make sure they understand the proper parameters of the relationship.
Meant to link this last night:
Worse Than Racism
“strangling a man to death” my white hairy ass.
I never saw his police record. Are we to believe all 30 of Garners past arrests were for selling untaxed cigs without a license?
I agree with you on the particulars, but let’s not forget the forest for the trees here:
See also my previous comment. Particularly the part about passing laws that you aren’t prepared to kill lawbreakers over.
There is trouble with the phrase “killing him in cold blood” though, at least insofar as his own prior (and dominant) health issues weren’t instantaneously diagnosed by the cops on the beat. They aren’t trained physicians, taught to recognize signs of heart troubles or diabetes or whatever. Expecting cops to think like a doc isn’t in the cards.
E.g. — “Ziad Abu Ein, a PA minister without portfolio, was rushed by ambulance from the village of Turmusiya after being hit and shoved by IDF soldiers during a protest on Wednesday, according to a Reuters photographer who witnessed the incident and a medic.
The man died en route to the nearby city of Ramallah. Israeli army sources believe his death was a result of a heart attack and said it was looking into the incident.
Abbas called the death of Abu Ein a “barbaric assassination'” that would not be tolerated.
“
As I keep saying, Garner was not wrestled down because of anything except resisting lawful arrest. Saying it was about cigarettes is like saying Michael Brown was shot because he stole cigars, or was walking down the middle of a street.
It just ain’t about that.
We oughtn’t to be too reductionist about incidents like the Garner arrest though. It’s about everything for us, even while the grand jury is focused on particular issues. The local demand for justice in the grand jury is necessarily focused on questions of the laws brought in play and the particulars of the deeds undertaken by the subjects in question, whereas the national demand for justice has to be open to questions of matters like the limitation of economic freedom to sell cigarettes and make ordinary human actions of free exchange, since the general questions must widen out, lest our inattention bring tyranny we cannot want.
I’ve got an air-soft gun that without the orange tip could pass for a .45 auto unless you see the smaller hole in the barrel, and even then there are .22s that are in full size .45 auto frames. That’s one recognition problem but what of the other way around?
“the national demand for justice has to be open to questions of matters like the limitation of economic freedom to sell cigarettes and make ordinary human actions of free exchange”
Like it or not, cigarettes are a controlled substance like alcohol, requiring a license to sell, with limitations on age. What Garner was doing was akin to me having a still and selling the bootleg whiskey to any passerby on the street. As for taxes, that is a state issue, and the people of NY keep electing the big government types, so I can’t get too upset they have high taxes to pay for it.
I bet Garner has voted Democrat since he was old enough to smoke. My justice meter is unaffected by his getting busted for avoiding NY tax law.
As for taxes . . .
I’m not seeing any as for taxes there. What about taxes? Is the purpose of taxation to settle the ruling class in living conditions that meet with the approval of the ruling class? Or, on the contrary, is the purpose of taxes intended to fund the means of the preservation of the very economic liberties implied by the sovereignty of the people?
We aren’t supposed to notice that the aim of taxation has gotten turned upside-down?
What’s incidentally funny to this incident is that the people insisting on decriminalizing marijuana because Prohibition didn’t work, and the people insisting on taxing cigarettes to the point of cost-prohibitiveness (creating the gray market for “street level loosey dealers” like Garner) are the same people.
And the number of products/professions/trades in which one needs a license or certification in order to sell/participate has gotten ridiculously high.
Licensed MD, good. Licensed interior designer, not so good.
Well, I keep hearing how the whole incidence was about the over taxation of cigarettes, and is the thing I’ve been calling bullshit on.
As for the purpose of taxation, for progressives it’s about social justice and wealth redistribution, their own increased affluence being but a happy perk of the scheme, and no, you aren’t supposed to notice.
That’s because you’re satisfied with the proximate cause, which, while necessary, isn’t sufficient.
No market for loosies, and Garner’s just a witness to a fight to which the police were summoned.
As for taxes, an aside . . .
That is just silly Ernst. Garner was not taken down for selling loosies, period. Garners crime could have been loitering, spitting on the sidewalk, or robbing a damn bank, but none of them would have got him killed by the cops. What got him killed by the cops was resisting arrest. Sorry, that IS sufficient, regardless the crime.
Believe me, I’m a smoker in California and know all about high cigarette taxes. I bet people get busted for bootleg smokes every day, without dying at the hands of the police. Know why? They don’t resist arrest, that’s why.