No Indictment After Cop Uses Prohibited Chokehold Resulting in Man’s Death
This is horribly appalling and disturbing:
The cop is using a chokehold not allowed by the department, to subdue a guy for barely resisting an arrest for selling unlicensed cigarettes. (Lord knows that society will crumble if cigarette vendors are not properly licensed! Long live freedom!) The man, Eric Garner, died from compression to the neck, according to the medical examiner. He can be heard pleading that he can’t breathe on the video, yet the officer does not let up.
I don’t like to reach conclusions about a criminal case based on incomplete information, but it’s tempting to conclude that the video is all you need. I would be fascinated to see what was presented to the grand jury that kept them from indicting this officer for something. (I am not intimately familiar with the laws of New York, so I don’t know what charge would be appropriate. However, a death resulting from excessive force must violate some law.)
Again: just appalling.
Popehat:
I don't like Eric Holder, and in general don't approve of Feds doubling up, but the Eric Garner case merits it. This needs a U.S. Attorney.
— Popehat (@Popehat) December 3, 2014
It’s hard to disagree.
UPDATE: Looks like that federal investigation is going to happen.
Ding.
Patterico (9c670f) — 12/3/2014 @ 7:15 pmTruly ironic that a perhaps legitimate case of police abuse is emanating from the blue-blue, true-blue, liberal-berserk city of New York, and not from Redneck-ville or so-called whitebread America.
I was talking with a person (a devout liberal, by the way) about the case in Ferguson, Missouri and said that since people of the left either cry “wolf” (along with yelling “racist!”) on so many occasions that they lose credibility, or mis-apply the concept of out-of-control cops to incidents where the perpetrator deserved the actions towards him, and therefore end up being cases attached to plenty of background noise, that the public soon tunes out “no justice, no peace” activism. However, in this instance, if such activists are outraged, then I’m right there with them.
Mark (c160ec) — 12/3/2014 @ 7:30 pmThe NYPD is already under federal monitoring for its “stop and and frisk” policy.
nk (dbc370) — 12/3/2014 @ 7:33 pmI watched the video. There were multiple officers on the scene. It is not clear that the officers had to subdue Mr. Garner in the way that they did. Might they have done something else to subdue him?
It looks like Mr. Garner knew the police. What led him to resist? What had transpired in their previous encounters?
I don’t know enough law to say the officers broke any laws but I don’t understand why this guy is dead either.
There is a lot we don’t know, but if police officers break the law they need to be prosecuted. There is no “get out of jail free” card just because you wear a blue uniform.
WarEagle82 (b18ccf) — 12/3/2014 @ 7:39 pmMr Patterico, everybody said the same thing about the Rodney King video. Yes, i know there is a difference that that case went to trial, but i think they had to go twice to a Grand Jury. might be wrong about that.
also, check out Ace’s musings, http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=353517
and i really don’t know why it makes a difference what law he was breaking, does anyone say that he was not resisting arrest?
seeRpea (2a32aa) — 12/3/2014 @ 7:40 pmoh, and check out President Barak’s lies related to this. it really does call for calling him ‘liar in chief’
seeRpea (2a32aa) — 12/3/2014 @ 7:42 pmIt’s a simple rule: You are justified to use force likely to cause death or great bodily harm only when threatened with death or great bodily harm or to prevent the commission of a felony.
— I didn’t kill anybody. I don’t kill people. I just squeezed this guy’s neck cutting off his breathing and the blood flow to his brain.
nk (dbc370) — 12/3/2014 @ 7:44 pm— Karl, that kills people!
re #7: is that rule from the NY State or NYC law books or your opinion?
seeRpea (2a32aa) — 12/3/2014 @ 7:58 pmI’m not justifying what happened, but I have questions and don’t understand.
I’m not trained in how to subdue people and know nothing about chokeholds.
And maybe he should be charged with something, especially if what he did was against policy.
But it seems to me that if you can hear a person say, “I can’t breathe”, he is in fact breathing, because you can’t make vocal sounds without breathing.
And I don’t know what the autopsy findings were that said he died from “compression to the neck”.
What does that mean? That his larynx was fractured? That there was significant bruising of the neck? That the carotid was pressed and he had some vasovagal reaction and had a fatal arrhythmia? That the pathologist saw the video?
You people who are military and such and may know something about hand to hand, if you have a person in a choke hold and they pass out, are they likely to be dead?
I think it was a tragic event, but it did look like they were simply trying to subdue a huge man, not overuse force.
What should they have done instead? Not arrest him? Used a tazer? Hit him with a club? I don’t know, but sometimes it seems people think the officer ought to be able to tell exactly what is the least amount of force to use to subdue someone, and I can only imagine that if you daily operate that way, it will not take very long to find out what happens when you don’t use enough.
In the days before MRI’s and such, it was said (shout out to Mike K.) that if a surgeon never took out a normal appendix, he/she wasn’t taking out enough, and he/she was going to err on letting some rupture that should have been removed.
I think I head Barkley say, “Don’t fight with the police”.
I am guessing that the officer never expected the amount of force he was using would cause permanent injury.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:06 pmIt would be interesting to see the full autopsy report, reviewed by two more pathologists like in Ferguson. What if he in fact died of an MI from being a severely overweight guy with a bad heart put under acute stress?
Not sure what crime occurred but it didn’t look necessary. Surely a valid civil suit exists. Patterico is correct again.
AZ Bob (34bb80) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:08 pmBarely. He didn’t have a chance.
Patterico (9c670f) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:11 pmAZ Bob, does that not look excessive to you?
Patterico (9c670f) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:11 pmA link for you, seeRpea. http://ypdcrime.com/penal.law/article35.htm#p35.30
nk (dbc370) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:16 pmI thought AZ Bob said the amount of force did seem unnecessary.
If anything, it may have seemed I suggested the amount of force was OK, but I wasn’t saying that.
Over the years roughhousing as a youth, I’m sure there were times when I gave or received a “chokehold” that wasn’t very significant. There is a difference between putting your arm around someone’s neck as one of several people trying to subdue somebody and applying pressure by flexing both arms forcefully so the guy’s face turns purple.
I’m not saying what was done was justified, I’m just saying I’m puzzled, and I’m thinking that whatever happened to cause his death had a lot to do with him being a 400lb unhealthy person.
Maybe I’m all wrong. I’m sure someone knows more than me and can speak to hand to hand combat issues.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:20 pmHe’s a dirty cop. They should take him out back and one to the head. I’m white by the way and a conservative. Cops have been out of control for too long. They think, they behave as though they are our masters. Get on the ground back up go here go there pick that up move your car lick my boot. How long will Americans submit to there petty tyrants?
jack (fafc9f) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:21 pmnk, I’m thinking that the arresting officers, including the person giving the “chokehold”, were not at all thinking they were using deadly force, but only what was required to apprehend a 400 lb man that was not cooperating.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:23 pmI would really like to see what other knowledgeable pathologists would have to say about the autopsy and the findings.
I’ve been told that a seasoned big-city cop would have never needed to shoot Brown because he never would have let himself get into the situation, that he would have approached Brown from a distance so that there was no chance for Brown to stuff him, or he would have already had his gun drawn before Brown got to the window,
in other words, a more aggressive approach from the get-go would have made things safer for everybody and maybe Brown would be alive because he would have never got the idea to resist.
Here, it seems that more force was used than necessary, but then, how were they going to force this 400 lb man against a wall to get his hands behind him to cuff him? I bet that would have been a blood mess with his face into a brick wall.
It’s terrible.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:30 pmThere were not any injuries to his larynx or any other component of the neck. He was morbidly obese and diabetic and had a heart attack. New York law would give the prosecutor the option of 1st degree manslaughter (arguing that the officers sought to injure Garner), 2d degree manslaughter (arguing that the officers were reckless – understood as disregarding a known risk), or criminally negligent homicide (arguing that the officers failed to perceive a risk a reasonable person would have perceived). Not sure how the case law fleshes out the spare verbiage of the Penal Law. I would think it would not be the choke hold which would be the issue, but the delay in providing him first aid, but who knows.
The man was resisting arrest and had a rap sheet with 30 infractions on it. Respect for authority was not his game.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:34 pmI can certainly understand why people should and would be outraged by this incident, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum. Apparently this man died for selling cigarettes. Yes, it is against the law to sell untaxed smokes in a state where a pack of cigarettes cost more than $14.
He died because the government knows better than you about how to lead your life and uses police to enforce its health rules and, more importantly, its cash flow. He died for trying to make a buck.
Ag80 (eb6ffa) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:35 pmArt Deco, where do you get that information, or are you presuming?
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:35 pmI’ve been told that a seasoned big-city cop would have never needed to shoot Brown because he never would have let himself get into the situation, that he would have approached Brown from a distance so that there was no chance for Brown to stuff him, or he would have already had his gun drawn before Brown got to the window,
Darren Wilson was not working the South Bronx. He was working a suburb where the big problems are burglary and auto theft.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:36 pmre #13: thanks nk!
ok , here is the pertinent part from the New York State rules:
So is the argument that “ipso facto” deadly force was used or are people mind reading the actions of the cop and he knew he was using deadly force? There does not seem to be any way that part ‘(c)’ would have a place in this case.
seeRpea (2a32aa) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:36 pmArt Deco, where do you get that information, or are you presuming?
The lack of injury to the larynx and neck bones was reported in the papers, as was a spare description of his medical history. The Penal Law is available online.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:37 pmWell, Ag80, I agree that had NY not had that law, or that the police decided they were not going to enforce the law, he would still be alive,
had he not resisted arrest, he would also still be alive.
I agree it is terrible.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:38 pmSo, what is the over/under for fanatic liberals to start bleeting that conservatives are outraged only because NY is deep blue politically?
seeRpea (2a32aa) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:38 pmApparently this man died for selling cigarettes.
No, he died because he had a heart attack while being tackled by police officers. He was tackled because he was being contumacious. It’s difficult to argue that the officers should have anticipated he’d die on the spot if they restrained him. The man was 43 years old and running his mouth at them, not some 85 year old great-grandpa.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:40 pmI was going by the report that says the autopsy showed he was killed by “compression to his neck”;
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:40 pmit wouldn’t be the first time that information released early on and what was later sifted through by the grand jury was different.
AZ Bob, does that not look excessive to you?
No. I’d focus on the aid he was given after he went limp.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:42 pmAs Patterico noted, the choke hold is prohibited by the NYPD. Because people were dying from it. (It was a big deal in LA when Darryl Gates was Chief. Google *Darryl Gates normal people remark*.) So the decision whether the choke hold was unlawful force had been made for the policeman. He did not have to guess.
nk (dbc370) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:42 pmCite please. My cite says this:
“Asthma, heart disease and obesity were contributing factors” does not mean he had a heart attack.
Please stop saying that unless you can prove it.
Patterico (9c670f) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:43 pmI was going by the report that says the autopsy showed he was killed by “compression to his neck”;
it wouldn’t be the first time that information released early on and what was later sifted through by the grand jury was different.
That was the coroner’s ruling – that the choke hold had pushed his asthmatic, diabetic, and morbidly obese body over the edge.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:43 pmPlease stop saying that unless you can prove it.
He died of cardiac arrest in the ambulance.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:44 pmArt Deco (ee8de5) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:36 pm
that’s what I was insinuating.
seeRpea, As I said before, I don’t think the officers were using what they thought was any force necessary other than to affect the arrest.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:45 pmI don’t think the officer put a “choke hold on him to kill him” anymore than Wilson shot a man with his hands up saying “Don’t shoot”.
This is why I said I would like to see the thoughts of another pathologist or two looking over the detailed autopsy report, rather than depending on a media report of what they said the coroner said.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:47 pmThat’s all.
IDK.
I tell you, I watched this video twice in a row and it just doesn’t seem like those consequences would be foreseeable. I could see the officer losing his job over the chokehold, but it seems the guy died more as a result of his own health.
The legislature of New York are the ones that wrote a law banning what he was doing and allowed the cops to enforce it. I don’t see how it is much different than a seat belt law causing an encounter with police that causes an accidental shooting from an officer. Both situations have gray areas that could result in charges, but most don’t because juries generally side with a cop because he is performing his job.
DejectedHead (5443cc) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:51 pmYeah, that’s the blue defense. If you, a civilian, point a gun at somebody’s direction, the jury is permitted to infer that you intended to kill him and you are guilty of attempted murder. If three cops actually punch and kick a homeless man “with a heart condition”, while he’s begging them to stop and calling out to his father for help, until he dies, they’re acquitted because they’re police and they never intend to kill but only to enforce the law. (That’s a relatively recent California event that you may recall.)
nk (dbc370) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:52 pmEveryone dies of cardiac arrest in the sense that everyone’s heart stops when they die. Prove he died of a heart attack. WITH A LINK.
Patterico (9c670f) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:54 pmUntaxed cigarettes. He was selling them individually and undercutting local merchants. So they called the cops.
Small matter.
It’s still the nanny state. It’s a “sin” tax, intended to punish bad behavior. Smoking is bad for you, doncha know? Apparently New Yorkers like having the authorities taxing to death or regulating everything the health nazis don’t approve of. So really, what should they expect of their police? Not to enforce those laws? New Yorkers can’t live without the government getting into their shorts for the flimsiest of reasons. They demanded more government. They got it. Good and hard. This is what looks like when people demand the government regulate every detail of their behavior, lest they do something unhealthy.
“Somebody stop me,” said the people of NYC. Well, somebody did.
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:56 pmWith regard to the bum, how would cops know he had a heart condition? I believe 3 cops kicking someone should be seen as falling on the more criminal side of the grey area though (like with Rodney King). But the argument is still valid. Police officers are there to enforce the law. The legislature passed a law forbidding activity, the blame is on them for creating that situation.
DejectedHead (5443cc) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:56 pmNot according to the reports I have read.
I just tried a case where someone’s heart condition contributed to the rapidity of their death.
They were shot in the trachea, lung, and a major blood vessel, and their heart disease meant they died a few seconds before they would have died otherwise.
That doesn’t mean they died of a heart attack.
I recognize the pattern, Art Deco. You make assertions and fail to back them up and above all, you NEVER BACK DOWN.
Link please.
Patterico (9c670f) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:56 pmThe next comment you make without proof, I go back and append a note to each of your false comments noting that you are spreading falsehoods. I will not allow you to use my blog to spread misinformation. If you have proof, provide it.
Moderation will be the next step if you can’t behave.
Patterico (9c670f) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:58 pmHe’s saying he can’t breathe. Is he a threat at that point? Release the damned chokehold.
[UPDATE: DejectedHead properly notes that the chokehold was released at that point — but the cop is pressing down hard on his head.]
Patterico (9c670f) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:59 pmIf only the people of NYC had elected somebody to ban large sugary drinks and dictate how much salt restaurants can put on food servings earlier. The cops didn’t kill Eric Garner. The irresponsible voters of NYC did, by not demanding an expanded nanny state earlier. Then Eric Garner would have been “heart healthy” enough to withstand the tender caresses of the nannies they’ve all been begging for lately.
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:00 pmWhen he’s saying “I can’t breathe” the chokehold isn’t there. He starts pressing his head down after that.
DejectedHead (5443cc) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:00 pmI’m not interested in gum-flapping from the cops who were circling the wagons, either. I want a quote from the medical examiner — you know, the professional whose responsibility it is to determine cause of death.
Patterico (9c670f) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:01 pmI have read that he had been arrested like 30 times with several convictions,
maybe his “just selling loosies” wa sort of like brown going to his grandma’s.
To paraphrase Sir Charles, you don’t know what to believe anymore.
I await more info as Patterico requests before I assert a claim as to what happened,
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:03 pmbut I am suspicious about the claim that the officer used sufficient force to have been expected to cause serious injury,
but if he did something against his regs he needs some kind of discipline.
You’re right. Still think the chokehold was excessive.
Patterico (9c670f) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:03 pmAt what point is someone dying of poor health more their responsibility than the responsibility of someone else?
I kind of wonder about it with medical liability anyways.
The chokehold is commonly seen in MMA fighting too, which has been on the rise in popularity in recent years.
DejectedHead (5443cc) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:06 pmI don’t want to see a quote from the medical examiner in a news article,
I want to see the autopsy report, with review if necessary.
Sometimes it seems everybody and their brother might have an agenda lurking.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:07 pmI think this is a little more than the guy suddenly “dying of poor health.” It was ruled a homicide.
Patterico (9c670f) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:07 pmMD in Philly,
I would prefer to see the whole report too. But unless the media has it badly wrong (which is always possible) it was ruled a homicide from “the compression of his chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police” with asthma, heart disease and obesity as “contributing factors.”
Patterico (9c670f) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:09 pmHaving seen autopsy reports many, many times before, I can tell you that (if that is reported accurately) that is not language used to describe a death resulting from poor health unrelated to the chokehold and other apparently excessive force shown on the video.
Patterico (9c670f) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:10 pmIf a chokehold is against regs., by definition it was wrong and needs some sort of action,
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:10 pmbut I am not sure if it was anything worse than I might have encountered in jr high or high school with people acting out “All Star Wrestling”, ya know what I mean, Marty?
Homicide means someone else did it correct? It is kind of an opinion of the medical examiner in some cases. I’d agree, the cops jumping on him caused his death, but I don’t think the cops could have seen that outcome coming from their actions.
The chokehold was on for I think I counted 14 seconds, he didn’t die of asphyxiation. The medical examiner determined there was no damage to his neck I believe (I don’t know for sure). Because of those two factors, I’d say the likely cause of death was predominately his health. Its just an opinion though.
DejectedHead (5443cc) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:11 pmWhich takes us back to my original questions. As a doctor, I have no idea what death by “compression of the neck” means, and on what basis, other than the video, that determination was made. Coroner’s can have agendas too.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:14 pmThere is a defense of Infancy where children are irrebuttably presumed not to know what hurts people but the cutoff is age eleven in most places. I think police officers know what hurts people.
nk (dbc370) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:17 pmWhere do you get that from? If he died from “compression of the neck” (and I agree with MD in Philly, I don’t know what that means and would like to see the autopsy report) I would be surprised if he had no injuries to the neck. But only a full review of the autopsy report could answer these questions.
I suppose; every profession can have a bad apple. But in my experience they tend not to have agendas.
Patterico (9c670f) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:17 pmI mean, it’s tragic.
But he’s also saying “I can’t breathe” which is usually a sign that someone CAN breathe.
Probably had an asthma attack is my guess. Can’t necessarily go around assuming everyone is asthmatic and allergic to pepper spray.
Plus, the cops called EMTs pretty quickly.
DejectedHead (5443cc) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:18 pmNot trying to be snarky, but what does “prone positioning” have to do with a cause of death unless there was a significant underlying problem with heart/lungs/both?
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:18 pmMark – it’s worth noting that New York City spans five counties, and that this grand jury was pulled from Richmond County (eg, Staten Island), which is significantly more red than the rest of the city (and in fact has just re-elected a Republican Congressman).
aphrael (ca6a52) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:18 pm> I am guessing that the officer never expected the amount of force he was using would cause permanent injury.
If we’re going for negligent homicide or manslaughter 2, the question isn’t what the *officer* expected, it’s what *a reasonable person* would expect.
aphrael (ca6a52) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:19 pm#57 (The chokehold was on for I think I counted 14 seconds, he didn’t die of asphyxiation. The medical examiner determined there was no damage to his neck I believe (I don’t know for sure).
Where do you get that from? If he died from “compression of the neck” )
I mean to say he wasn’t strangled to death by the officer. It was a chokehold for 14s and he’s heard talking after it is released. It would be different if he held it for 63 seconds.
DejectedHead (5443cc) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:20 pmIf the choke hold shut off the carotids and they did not reopen after it was released, which according to Darryl Gates happens more often with black people than it does with “normal people”, then he was dying as he was talking.
nk (dbc370) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:25 pmWell, from what I saw, I would not have expected any serious injury.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:26 pmThey were trying to subdue a huge guy, people grabbed what was closest, and one person it was his head/neck. I would have expected that with other people grabbing arms and legs, the “chokehold” would have had the force to control the movement of the head, not close off air movement and circulation.
As has been said before. If he was talking, it would seem the “chokehold” was not that forceful.
To repeat myself, “chokeholds” among adolescent boys were pretty common when I was young, but nobody ever passed out, let alone died.
But I think all has been said pending more detailed info.
Yes, but he had barely given them any reason to react like that. It’s as if your child temporarily questioned an order for a moment, and you turned the child upside down and paddled the child with a large wooden board about 60 times. The response is WAAAAY out of proportion to the provocation.
Patterico (9c670f) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:33 pmif he hadn’t been selling cigarettes illegally, which was apparently, from his criminal record, his regular day j*b, the cops wouldn’t have talked to him.
had he cooperated with being arrested, rather than resisting, he never would have wound up on the ground, and would, most likely, assuming one of his fellow criminals didn’t kill him in the meantime, be alive today, albeit with an even longer jacket.
play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
and it’s a safe bet that, if he voted at all, he voted for the party that passed stupid laws like the one he was breaking.
redc1c4 (589173) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:39 pmAnd paddling them 60 times is different than paddling them 5 times.
Did it look like the cops paddled Eric Garner 60 times? I’d say no.
This is more a primary example of why lawmakers shouldn’t make excessive laws that lead to police encounters.
DejectedHead (5443cc) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:40 pmwhich is significantly more red than the rest of the city
Aphrael, the political ambiguity of the setting is, in turn, backed up by the ambiguity — at best — of the deceased, per MD’s post:
I have read that he had been arrested like 30 times with several convictions, maybe his “just selling loosies” wa sort of like brown going to his grandma’s.
I didn’t go beyond the brief assessment in Patterico’s blog entry and, because I hate being outraged by truly unjust situations, I sort of zoned out and didn’t look more closely at all the details of the case. For instance, I originally envisioned the victim as being of normal weight and temperament, without previous run-ins with the law, just nonchalantly going on about his personal business until presumably a busybody cop — with maybe a ticket quota he had to fill for the day — entered the scene.
I should have known that reality sometimes isn’t quite as simple as it appears at first glance.
Mark (c160ec) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:41 pmOK. It’s as if your child temporarily balked at one of your orders, so rather than issuing the order again in a louder voice, you grab your child around the neck and put your child in a chokehold for several seconds, then invite your spouse and other family members to sit on your child while your child weakly states that he/she cannot breathe.
Even if your child were 350 pounds and out of shape, this would not be appropriate.
Patterico (9c670f) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:45 pmHe barely, barely resisted. He didn’t have a chance.
Patterico (9c670f) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:46 pmLook, regardless of the cause of death, he died because he was selling cigarettes. If he made the choice not to sell cigarettes, he may or not be alive today. Who knows? He was a big guy and apparently an asthmatic. He broke a stupid law that the police were required to uphold. He was trying to make a buck and the police were trying to enforce the law. He’s dead. All of this is sad, except for one thing:
Grand juries. They are the foundation of criminal law in this nation. You may not care for their decisions for indictment or not. No one commenting here tonight sat on the grand jury on this case. No one here saw the evidence presented.
If we presume to know what a Grand Jury should or should not decide without the evidence they see, then our whole judicial system is lost and we, as a nation, are nothing more than warring tribes to see who can shout the loudest.
Ag80 (eb6ffa) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:48 pm63.If the choke hold shut off the carotids and they did not reopen after it was released????
Say what??
I could be completely wrong, but I’m trying to say that
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:49 pmthere is a chokehold where one person is trying to subdue another person, one on one, and you are flexing with all of your might to make the person pass out,
and then there is the “chokehold” where one person grabs the head while others are grabbing everything else, and making the person pass out is not the intent, and applying that much pressure is not done.
I have at times been the recipient or the performer of the second type, not in any particular malice, and have found it to be harmless.
the ‘chokehold’ doesn’t seem to be illegal, just an acceptable manner of detention according to police department regulations. perhaps that is why a purposeful criminal indictment was not returned?
that would not explain “negligent homicide/manslaughter” not being returned. Anyone here know the rules of presentations to Grand Jury in NYC? Can a prosecutor ask for anything and everything (as in Texas) or does the presentation have to be more specific?
seeRpea (2a32aa) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:50 pmAs a literally egg-shell skulled person, I have a personal stake in all the assertions that it was somehow the victim’s fault that he was more fragile than the cops thought. That’s not the law. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_skull
nk (dbc370) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:55 pmre #73: typo , that should read
why can’t we edit our own posts?
seeRpea (2a32aa) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:59 pmnk, you are the lawyer, not me, but your reference suggests to me that the issue is when something that is inherently wrong has occurred. Using force to affect an arrest is not inherently wrong.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/3/2014 @ 10:03 pmWas excessive force used? perhaps, and I haven’t been arguing that what was done was ok,
I’m just skeptical that the man died because of a fatal chokehold, unless you want to say the chokehold was more responsible for his asthma/heart attack/whatever than the rest of the altercation.
#74. It might not be the law nk, but it is also the law that selling single cigarettes in NYC is illegal. If I’m being asked to ignore that law, then I’ll ignore the Egg shell precedent too.
#69. You can change the scenario in numerous ways, it just describes the level of gray area. If you go back to paddling the child, opinions will change as you increase the number of paddlings too. There is no firm yes/no as to what is acceptable.
I mean, I totally agree that cops should treat people like people and not property of the state. But the reality of law enforcement is that it isn’t nearly that simple. We’re asking cops to do a job that automatically gets them into situations like this. The problems lie with the laws we ask them to enforce. We see the same story playing out drug law enforcement. When you ask the cops to enforce laws, it causes more encounters. Some of those encounters are acceptable and some aren’t. Eventually people ask whether the strong armed tactics are worth the crime.
DejectedHead (5443cc) — 12/3/2014 @ 10:17 pmI’m not a criminal lawyer, but I seem to recall from Sam Dash’s criminal procedure class at Georgetown that jeopardy doesn’t attach until a trial jury is sworn. Can some of you smart crim guys explain to me what prevents the state AG in this case (and the Ferguson one, for that matter) from simply re-submitting the evidence to a new GJ? Seems to me that, given the politics of the situation, Eric Schneiderman, at least, might be inclined to go that route…
lostingotham (adddc2) — 12/3/2014 @ 10:24 pmlostingotham , the Ferguson case is quite a bit different due to the self defense aspect of that case. Especially in Missouri a prosecutor has a high bar to hurdle to get a GrandJury not to think that the person involved thought it was a matter of self defense.
This NY case? I asked earlier and no one answered, so who knows? evidently this GJ did not believed the cops were not pigs.
seeRpea (2a32aa) — 12/3/2014 @ 10:33 pm(if you don’t get the joke, think about sandwiches)
maybe they can try different charges to a different GJ
All I can say is, to all the leftists who’ve been calling for government regulation to stop the excesses of the free market, congratulations! You’ve finally bagged a greedy capitalist.
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/3/2014 @ 10:35 pmAg80 says:
I’m not going to argue with that, and if you parse the language of my post carefully, you’ll see I technically don’t. So you don’t have to scroll up and read it again, here is the relevant quote from my post:
So yeah, technically, I agree that we don’t know all the facts, and I don’t say otherwise. But . . . I come close, because that video looks pretty damn clear. But I acknowledge in the post, and agree with you here, that we don’t know everything, and that, in theory, there could be something to explain what on its face looks so excessive.
I doubt it. But there could.
Patterico (9c670f) — 12/3/2014 @ 10:35 pmI’m still puzzled by a case of a police shooting a few months ago involving a person (a black guy, btw) in a location in St Louis, not too far from Ferguson. Patterico posted a video showing the killing of that guy, who wasn’t armed and was acting in a way that seemed suicidal to me. He was shot after merely sort of loitering around a public sidewalk, even though he was standing several feet away from the cops and didn’t appear to be an immediate threat to them or anyone else.
I believe various forumers sort of shrugged that incident off. But if a case of inappropriate use of force has to be brought to the forefront and used to heighten public consciousness, that occasion to me seemed far more deserving of such treatment than most definitely the killing in Ferguson or presumably the one in New York City.
Mark (c160ec) — 12/3/2014 @ 10:36 pmhttp://thelibertarianrepublic.com/nyc-cracking-illegal-underground-dinner-parties/#.VIABO54fRtI
.
You’re gonna need a bigger SWAT team, NYC.
There’s still a lot of socialist morality left unenforced.
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/3/2014 @ 10:40 pmMy question, seeRpea, did not go to the merits of the case, but simply to procedure. Is there anything (other than politics) that prevents the local prosecutor or the state AG from presenting these cases to another GJ? I don’t think there is, and, at least in the NY case, it seems to me that the AG, at least, has political motivation to do just that. Patterico? You’re a prosecutor. Do you know? Does Cali even use the GJ system?
lostingotham (adddc2) — 12/3/2014 @ 10:43 pmYes, we can tell by your comments.
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/3/2014 @ 10:43 pmPat,
Because the tape clearly shows the cop jumps on the much larger man not in a choke hold but to tackle him to the ground the guy is resisting and his heart gave out.
As they twist to the ground, the man is clearly active and even before the confrontation was profusely sweating, according to Breitbart and other sources he couldn’t walk a block without resting having to sit down.
compressions of the neck were not present since the man was constantly repeating I cant breath I cant breath I cant breath in a loud and clear voice – well obviously he is breathing.
It was stupid for a 400 lb man who was dying of diabetes, asthma and uncontrolled blood pressure, to start a confrontation with 3 much smaller policemen.
EPWJ (db4127) — 12/3/2014 @ 10:45 pmI found this interesting article on PJmedia comment section.
http://nypost.com/2014/08/14/not-a-chokehold-truth-of-the-garner-arrest/
Basically, the cop used a headlock instead of the chokehold, which is apparently allowed in taking down the suspect.
Here’s what caught my eye –
“A top medical examiner (who can’t publicly fault the city ME) tells me it was very irresponsible for the Medical Examiner’s Office to issue the press release stating that Garner’s death was caused by a chokehold (with asthma, heart disease and obesity as contributing factors) and ruling his death a homicide.
Two big points: 1) * The final autopsy report hasn’t been released. We don’t have the full story, just headlines. 2) “Homicide” only means that one person has caused the death of another.”
*(This article was published online in August, so I imagine the autopsy has been released by now)
The video by itself if pretty damning, and the officers should be guilty if they knew about his condition beforehand. But perhaps the GJ heard other info or viewed the video in another context. We should wait for all the facts to be made available.
lee (8df9cf) — 12/3/2014 @ 11:00 pmRelevant: http://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/24/nyregion/kelly-bans-choke-holds-by-officers.html
“Chief Timoney said the city policy specifically did not distinguish between various types of holds, but rather banned them categorically. It also prohibited other restraints or tactics — like standing on a suspect’s chest or transporting a suspect in a face-down position — which might impede breathing.
“Basically, stay the hell away from the neck,” he said. “That’s what it says.”
lostingotham (adddc2) — 12/3/2014 @ 11:04 pmKids don’t know how to apply a chokehold, which is why not much happened to you or your fiends. Having both applied and had one applied to me, I can testify that properly applied hold will incapacitate anyone in less than 20 seconds, and 90% will be out under 12.
The hold uses the upper arm and the forearm to form a vise. The pressure is applied to the sides of the neck to shut off blood flow to the brain through the carotid arteries. It’s not meant to control, it’s meant to knock out. Someone mentioned arterial collapse. That is a possibility, but not a likely one. The real danger in that hold is when it’s misapplied, which is far easier than doing it right. Let your arm slip and you’re squeezing front to back. It is way too easy to damage the trachea, producing swelling which will block the airway, and without immediate medical intervention, kill the person in a few minutes. This is the major danger. Front to back compression can also cause spinal damage, but this is a lot less likely, about as likely as arterial collapse.
When I look at the video, I see a misapplied hold, with “99’s” forearm across the front of his neck. Damaged trachea, swelling drastically restricting airflow… dead Gamer.
How the GJ no billed the cops is a mystery.
Bud (791f49) — 12/3/2014 @ 11:05 pmand since Mr Patterico likes breitbart,
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/12/03/actual-facts-Eric-Garner
a major point brought up is that a chokehold was not actually used.
seeRpea (2a32aa) — 12/3/2014 @ 11:05 pmIn my opinion, that characterization does not come close to resembling the reality depicted in the video. Here is a quote from the post, including the video:
I believe I accurately characterize the relevant parts of the video in that commentary.
Patterico (9c670f) — 12/3/2014 @ 11:06 pmlee,
No it was mild, it was quick, they released him in seconds – he was combative and swatted one of the officers and took a 1/23 step towards him so that’s what precipitated the confrontation’s escalation.
Also it was a relatively cool summer, notice no one is sweating but garner in fact some people were wearing light jackets or long sleeved shirts – his tee shirt was soaked in places
Sweating on a cool day, shortness of breath, all signs of advanced heart disease
EPWJ (db4127) — 12/3/2014 @ 11:07 pm…or nervousness over being rousted by five cops, Lee.
lostingotham (adddc2) — 12/3/2014 @ 11:10 pmPat,
It seems to be too far away the 8-10 feet seems very accurate but watch the speed he closed on the officer after veering to the left.
EPWJ (db4127) — 12/3/2014 @ 11:14 pmMight even be as much as 12-14 feet but that is well within the zone that a man with a knife can kill you before you can shoot him.
Patterico (9c670f) — 12/3/2014 @ 11:28 pmI found it was just easier to agree with him when he said he was puzzled rather than to go through all that.
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/3/2014 @ 11:31 pm21ft is the general standard.
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/3/2014 @ 11:33 pmi think we might want to take a steer from Legal Insurrection on this issue…
albeit it seems a bit lte for that here on this thread.
redc1c4 (269d8e) — 12/4/2014 @ 12:32 amthat’s often quoted, but it’s not a hard and fast rule, and planning your self protection measures as if it were might get you killed, if you’re unlucky that day.
redc1c4 (269d8e) — 12/4/2014 @ 12:33 amred, that’s why I said it was a general standard.
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/4/2014 @ 12:46 amMythbusters say 10ft http://chicagowarrior.blogspot.com/2013/04/dont-bring-gun-to-knife-fight-10-foot.html
seeRpea (2a32aa) — 12/4/2014 @ 12:51 amBud (791f49) — 12/3/2014 @ 11:05 pm
Thank you for your comments.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/4/2014 @ 1:07 amAlong with what some of the links by others state, I think your comment reflects my statements about “chokeholds” and “chokeholds”. While perhaps some of us in our younger days did not know how to correctly apply a chokehold, the main point was that no one really wanted to apply a chokehold as you describe it, with the intent of incapacitating a person, to make them pass out.
The things I have read about the autopsy in the various links do not say anything about him actually having any damage to his trachea at all,
hence my questioning what was meant by “compression to the neck”.
Well now there will be no living with them. Thanks an effin lot NYPD.
I can’t see where beating down a big fat guy, causing him to go coronary, is any better than choking him out.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 12/4/2014 @ 1:14 amNo the victim didn’t swat any officer. At no point did his hands go north of his elbows. And what in the hell is a 1/23 step? Is that where you wiggle your toes?
Glad that you — Patterico — are fair-minded enough to be upset with this non-indictment.
We need body cameras and microphones on all officers. If this cop knew he was being recorded, we’d have one less death. Studies indicate that police use of force plummets, over 50%, as do citizen complaints, even more, in jurisdictions where this has been implements.
nosh (873051) — 12/4/2014 @ 3:57 amit’s not the federal government’s job to put cameras on feral local coptrash
happyfeet (831175) — 12/4/2014 @ 4:01 amlostingotham (adddc2) — 12/3/2014 @ 10:43 pm
You’re right. A grand jury No Bill is not a bar to a future prosecution and there is no statute of limitations on murder. These cops can be tried forty years from now like some Klansmen have been for murders they’d thought they’d gotten away with in the segregation era South. They better be careful what they brag about when they sit around reminiscing after their retirement.
From that point of view, the State Island DA might not have done these cops a favor by throwing the grand jury proceeding. He should have done like the Orange County DA does: Brought the case to trial and thrown the trial. Then the cops could not have been re-tried in New York state and it would have been far less likely that the federal Department of Justice would prosecute them.
Let me clear. I definitely am saying that trying cops for crimes in New York City and in Orange County, California is like trying Klansmen for crimes against black people in the segregation era South. But as we saw with the trials, finally, of the murderers of Emmett Till and Medgar Evers the wheels of justice never stop grinding.
nk (dbc370) — 12/4/2014 @ 5:21 ampapertiger
Lying isn’t helping he was a career criminal – most people don’t have 30 previous arrests and convictions. He was the one who refused to leave the doorway of a shop blocking it from commerce – its time for all the lying to stop now.
EPWJ (992ed5) — 12/4/2014 @ 5:36 amI’m with Prof Jacobson on the Garner death:
rfy (0e6466) — 12/4/2014 @ 5:52 amThirty convictions – you’d think this dangerous cigarette tax dodger would be put away for the safety of the city.
What do you call a crime so minor in it’s legal consequence that the average bread winner finds it a lucrative trade-off to rack up 30 cases?
Not a felony. Not a misdemeanor. It can be nothing other than the dreaded infraction! The protocol for an infraction is the cop writes a citation and everyone goes about their merry.
But those NY types, they might have a crazy bug up their nose to really crack down on special city only $5 a pack cigarette tax cheats. Maybe the cops got a directive from nanny Bloomberg.
In that special case, what was their hurry? It’s not like the big fat guy is going to take the Nike bail bond. Were the cops late for donuts?
papertiger (c2d6da) — 12/4/2014 @ 6:58 amNot just sitting around reminiscing, nk, I don’t think the Garner cops to can be too comfortable just sitting around. I don’t even think the GJ that indicts them has to be in the same county. I believe a GJ sitting in New York or Bronx County could, tomorrow, decide it wants to indict them and, presto, they’d be indicted. I don’t even think a prosecutor has to ask…. Not for nothing, I’ll bet that there are enough liberal lawyers living in Manhattan that there are at least a couple serving on a GJ right now. What stops a GJ led by such a person from returning an indictment?
lostingotham (0845e7) — 12/4/2014 @ 7:12 amWas this a chokehold or a submission hold? This New York Post article suggests it was the latter.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/4/2014 @ 7:21 amIs this essentially an eggshell plaintiff case?
DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/4/2014 @ 7:22 amI know the eggshell rule is typically a civil law issue but can it also apply in criminal law? If so, then Garner’s health might be relevant because it contributed to his death.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/4/2014 @ 7:25 amI believe I accurately characterize the relevant parts of the video in that commentary.
I’ve watched that video again and if the “no justice, no peace” activists want a poster child for an example of overreaction by cops, that case deserves their blue ribbon, not the incident in Ferguson or even the one in Long Island. If anything, after watching that vid again, it’s even more obvious to me the guy was trying to be a martyr, since what he had stolen from the store was hardly a big-ticket item, and the way he was displaying the two cans of soda out on the sidewalk, and his “shoot me now!” reaction to the arriving police, indicates he was like a person threatening to jump off a high ledge. The cops were similar to bystanders yelling “jump, jump!”
It figures the left — time and time again — can’t apply a correct assessment to a situation, coddling a person or scenario when it deserves condemnation, and damning a person or scenario when it deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Mark (c160ec) — 12/4/2014 @ 7:33 amDRJ, it’s a chokehold that’s euphemistically called a submission hold. The one Bud described above, that cuts off the blood flow in the carotids.
Yes, you take your victim as you find him in criminal cases too. You can’t speed through a red light and say, “How was I supposed to know nk could not jump out of my way? Or better, “How was I supposed to know that girl was allergic to rohypnol?” In any event, it’s not even necessary in this case. Strangling kills healthy people too. His medical condition is really a red herring.
nk (dbc370) — 12/4/2014 @ 7:44 am??? What are you talking about?
He knew he was being recorded. All the cops knew. The guy recording the scene was standing right there, recording the scene. There was also a crowd of witnesses.
The cop didn’t think he was doing anything wrong. You can record all you want. You can have all the witnesses you want. That won’t keep a cop from doing something he or she thinks is entirely correct procedure.
Saying recordings will stop death is like saying higher taxes will stop climate change.
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/4/2014 @ 7:46 amThe NY Post article says this was a legal submission hold and not an illegal chokehold because the police officer’s hands “never appeared to lock around Garner’s neck.”
DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/4/2014 @ 7:47 amyou’d think this dangerous cigarette tax dodger would be put away for the safety of the city.
There were crimes other than evading excise taxes on the sheet.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 12/4/2014 @ 7:48 amNo you don’t. Intent matters in a criminal case. Also the reasonable person standard. Or, in this case, the reasonable cop standard. Would a reasonable person with police training and experience think this officer used the appropriate amount of force to effect an arrest.
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/4/2014 @ 7:49 amAs for the medical condition, I know you’re stuck with whatever limitations a victim has — but isn’t it an exception when the victim is contributorily negligent? There’s an argument that Garner’s knowledge that he was violating the law, his previous arrests, and his statement that “This stops here” was tantamount to an invitation for an altercation — and thus contributory negligence that would make his medical condition relevant.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/4/2014 @ 7:51 amWhat’s telling is that none of the cops (all of whom knew they were being recorded; many of them talked to the one guy who was doing this recording, and who knows how many others were also recording) apparently thought officer Daniel Pantaleo was administering an illegal choke hold.
There was a crowd of witnesses. At least one was recording. I don’t believe he was the only one recording. And they clearly didn’t care. Because apparently they all thought nobody on their team was doing anything wrong.
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/4/2014 @ 8:01 amAt about the 1:45 mark when the guy in the suit tells the video guy to back up, he pans to the left as he turns to back up. He records a lady in a purple shirt with her cell phone up in front of her. She’s not using it to make a phone call. It looks like she’s recording.
These cops aren’t complete idiots. They know what’s going on when a crowd gathers at the scene of an arrest or altercation, and people have their cell phones in front of their faces.
How would body cameras have done something all those cell phone cameras right there, just feet away, for all to see didn’t do?
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/4/2014 @ 8:09 amI have read the claims that the used of bodycams decreases complaints. I do not know if I’ve seen how much of that is because it changes behavior of the police, those being arrested, or just the eagerness of people to make complaints when they know they can’t fabricate.
There are how many thousands and thousands of police officers? I am sure that quite a few make some errors in judgment, and that there are some who really are bad;
but I have also been told that someone resisting arrest is doing just that, and the police will always end up using force to overpower the individual, and usually it will look ugly to some degree, and depending on the editing any video may or may not be a good representation.
Look at what the media did to the 911 call by Zimmerman. Do you think they are not eager to do that with the typical bodycam when they can?
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/4/2014 @ 8:09 amAnother Darwin incident. One of 600 nationally such over the past 12 months.
No too bad for your average police state.
Faster please.
DNF (3b2963) — 12/4/2014 @ 8:22 amOne of the easiest beefs for a suspect to hang on a cop, when they get their property back after arrested, is claim to be short a $20 and the cop stole it. The smart ones don’t claim a large amount. Just a $20. Because of ATMs almost all cops will have a $20, and it will be impossible for the cop to prove he didn’t take it from the suspect when he confiscated the guy’s property.
Unless the cop is smart and counts it out in front of the dash cam as he’s making the arrest. The smart ones, then, don’t make the complaint.
That’s one of my rules for dealing with the media. Always have your own camera or you don’t agree to the interview. Or whatever.
The cops could edit the video, too, I suppose. But all they have to do is miss one security camera, or one witness with a cell phone. And then the world knows that not only did an individual cop do something wrong, but then the department tried to cover it up.
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/4/2014 @ 8:29 amIt disturbs me that protests and riots are now the norm in response to a grand jury decision, but I guess I’m not a community activist. It also disturbs me that people don’t believe in the legal system, even before they know the facts. Videos make us feel like experts but many of us don’t know the rules that apply to police officers’ conduct. Thus, we need to try to understand why the grand jury made the decision it did, and I think the way to do that is to look at the evidence in the light most favorable to the police officer.
Therefore, it appears to me that the police officer did not lock his hands because one arm was around Garner’s neck but the other arm was under Garner. That sounds like what the NY Post article says is a legal submission hold, not an illegal chokehold. Perhaps Garner’s medical condition — including the fact that he was chronically wheezing — helps explain why any pressure around his neck might result in difficulty breathing. He was a big man who doesn’t look fragile, but his health made him medically fragile. That’s a bad combination, and it’s easy to see why things might not end well if Garner invited an altercation with police. It also might explain the peculiar wording of the autopsy report, which seems like it’s trying to blame both the police officer and Garner’s medical condition for his death.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/4/2014 @ 8:31 amI can’t find the full text of the autopsy online but the NY Daily News’ article linked in Patterico’s post says it ruled Garner’s death a homicide due to compression of the neck, but also “determined the victim’s asthma, obesity and high blood pressure were also contributing factors in his death.” That sounds like a blend of “chokehold + medical condition.” My guess is the grand jury may have decided there wasn’t clear proof that a chokehold was used by the police officer because it could have been a submission hold, and they couldn’t rule out that Garner’s medical condition was the cause of his death.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/4/2014 @ 8:44 amThat sounds like a blend of “chokehold + medical condition.”
Ordinarily, a 43 year old man will not go into cardiac arrest if he’s tackled. Suggest that the variable here is the man’s underlying medical condition.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 12/4/2014 @ 8:51 amDRJ
I’m finding out the cause of death is not official yet if these sources are correct – which is a wonderment and that the statement that the death was due to compressions of the neck is being disputed as either being not official or ever being even made.
In a time of unrest nothing fuels a fire like uncertainty…
look at some of the July medical examiner articles after August 1 there seems to be a new theme, what happened?
EPWJ (598909) — 12/4/2014 @ 8:52 amArt
43 year old men 200 lbs overweight smoking while suffering from Asthma untreated diabetes and high blood pressure?
EPWJ (598909) — 12/4/2014 @ 8:54 amActually, DRJ, the article at the link says, “The autopsy also found that compressions to the chest and ‘prone positioning during physical restraint by police.'”
So it appears to me that it’s impossible to say it was Pantaleo’s actions that caused the compressions to the chest that the article mentions. There were a lot of cops on the guy, not just Pantaleo.
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/4/2014 @ 8:57 amThis whole incident is unfortunate, but it was brought on by Garner not complying. I don’t know what he Grand Jury saw but there are some things I do know from experience. What went on here is not highly unusual, people act like he did all the time. Cops hate it when they have to get involved in something like this over some stupid law that politicians put into place and citizens want enforced, but that’s their job.
I keep seeing “barely resisting” in the comments. I don’t quite know what that means. Was he resisting or not? The officer in front of him reached out and tried to take his arm and Garner batted it away. It didn’t appear to be a hard blow, but it was definitely a blow. At that point it was obvious that he wasn’t going to comply and allow Officers to put cuffs on him. i suppose that they could have continued the dance and keep reaching out to grab him and try to get his arms behind him, but you just about guarantee that it would be a wasted effort. That dance seems to last forever and almost always ends up in a fight.
Because of his size, I know what all the Officers around him were thinking at that point, “Oh, 5hit!, here we go again. This is not going to be easy”. Lessons learned while subduing resisting suspects is that the best way to avoid injuries in altercations is the dogpile. It ain’t pretty but it works. No impact injuries and usually the worst thing to happen is a scrape or sprain. While he was down, he kept saying he couldn’t breathe. It may have been more difficult for him to breathe but he was saying it and his being heard seems to indicate that he was able to breathe and was not being “choked”. People being choked can’t talk, which is why while learning the choke and carotid holds, the “tap out” is used to end the lesson.
labcatcher (61737c) — 12/4/2014 @ 9:00 amSo, really, how do you assign blame to just one guy? That is what the grand jury had to struggle with. Was a crime committed, and is this individual the one who committed it?
It’s clearly a mistake to go by the reporting. I should have provided a larger quote from the linked article:
Sure, the paper says “it was the choke hold that killed him.”
But how many causes of death are there?
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/4/2014 @ 9:15 amThey had plenty of cops around the guy. He wasn’t going anywhere. Talk (not “take”) him down. That’s part of the job, right? Even if the chokehold happens (as a euphemistic matter) to be a valid technique, did they really need to use it here?
Leviticus (f9a067) — 12/4/2014 @ 9:38 am“He can be heard pleading that he can’t breathe on the video”
Does anyone see the logic flaw in this sentence?
CrustyB (69f730) — 12/4/2014 @ 9:52 amAgain, that’s a separate question from whether or not was Pantaleo criminally responsible for Garner’s death.
I don’t see how the grand jury could have decided he was, given the reporting.
Here’s what killed Garner, according to just the press report Pat linked to above
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/eric-garner-death-ruled-homicide-medical-examiner-article-1.1888808
-Compression to the neck killed Garner
-Compression to the chest killed Garner
-Prone positioning killed Garner
-Asthma contributed to Garner’s death
-Obesity contributed to Garner’s death
-High blood pressure contributed to Garner’s death
So we have three primary causes of death, according to the press. And three secondary. Huh?
So, how is Pantaleo the individual responsible? He was the only one charged according to the Hot Air post that Pat linked to. Which then links to a New York magazine article saying that it was only the compression to the neck, and the article says that was due to the “illegal choke hold.”
The grand jury may have got this wrong. But given how the press is all over the place when it comes to causes of death, and how many police officers were involved, I can see how a grand jury would have concluded that there’s no way they could assign criminal blame to just one officer for just one action.
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/4/2014 @ 10:31 amCrustyB, when my father was dying, because he couldn’t breathe, in the ICU, he said “I’m dying”. Just before the nurses slapped the ventilator on him. Ok? People die gasping for breath and they can talk when they exhale but they’re still dying because they’re not getting enough air through their trachea (like probably Garner) or their thorax is full of fluid (like my father).
nk (dbc370) — 12/4/2014 @ 10:33 amI know it is hard to go through all of the posts when a thread has been around for awhile.
Covering some old data:
– Yes, it has been commented on that if a person can vocalize, they are able to breathe. Now, no one is going to criticize the guy for not saying, “I’m short of breath”, but it should be noted that his talking suggest the “chokehold” was not choking him.
– It is unclear what “Compression of the neck” means and what kind of physical evidence on autopsy supported this. Was their damage to the trachea or hyoid bones? Was there evidence of bruising of the soft tissues of the neck? Or is the only physical evidence of “Compression of the neck” the video? Was there an examination of the heart, did it show a massive MI that was linked to the exertion rather than the “chokehold”?
Other, not sure if commented on:
The police were there at the request of the store owner (” a minority”) who was losing business to garner selling in front of his store.
New York’s mayor had in the weeks previous to the event told the police to increase efforts to enforce cigarette tax law.
The precinct chief is African-American.
There was a female African-American sergeant in supervision of the incident.
I don’t know if our old friend Mr. “D” the police veteran is available and interested in commenting on what is seen in the video, or other police. Not to pick on your analogy, P, but if two brothers are “play fighting”, or even when it turns into “real fighting” when the “play” boundaries were overstepped, there is usually a minimal stepwise increase in force with not intent of serious injury.
A policeman cannot assume a person resisting arrest lives by the same rules.
As I often say, what were the options? Per the higher ups, not enforcing the law was not an option. I think it is safe to say a tazer might have triggered a fatal event as well. Use of a baton would have been seen as too much force as well. As I said before, 4 officers turning him around and slamming him head first into a wall (if there was a wall and not a store window) would have looked as too rough and might have precipitated a fatal asthma attack or MI as well.
As I just heard pointed out by an ex-cop, while Wilson was criticized for not waiting for back-up, the initial officer/s with garner waited for back up, as evidenced in the video, and he still refused to comply.
There may have been better ways of dealing with the situation, but it is not true that a “rogue white officer choked to death a black man”.
Two more things:
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/4/2014 @ 10:37 am1) Medically, it is well established that someone with bad and inadequately treated asthma loses an appreciation of just how bad their breathing is at baseline, and when they “feel it getting worse”, they often die unless they get put on a ventilator in time. Now, I realize there is the “egg-shell skull” issue, but it is very possible that any increased exertion might have been enough to trigger a fatal event.
2) You can hear Garner say something like, “This stops here.” It reminds me of when the high priest says in the gospels, “It would be good if one man died for the people” (John 18:14). Uncannily prophetic, but not as the speaker intended.
Very sad, it really is, but the focus does not belong on one police officer alone.
I was at a steakhouse once, and a woman at the next table started coughing. She also started to panic. She was convinced she was choking on a piece of steak, and started asking for help.
I know the Heimlich maneuver. I also knew she didn’t need me to perform it on her. A piece of meat did go down the wrong pipe, but we just encouraged her to keep coughing and soon she coughed it up on her own.
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/4/2014 @ 10:38 amnk,
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/4/2014 @ 10:43 amI do not want to get into an argument about so sensitive a topic, but the lungs not getting enough oxygen into the blood is different from no air movement through the trachea. It apparently was true that Garner was not getting enough oxygen into his blood, but whether it was by constriction over his trachea is debatable.
I realize that this is late, but as an addition to Art Deco’s misrepresentations; back at 21 he said:
“Darren Wilson was not working the South Bronx. He was working a suburb where the big problems are burglary and auto theft.”
My brother lived in Ferguson and I visited him there; thankfully, he has moved out. He worked delivering pizza for a restaurant 1 mile away from ground zero. Armed robberies like clockwork, once every few months. Visited his kids in their school; it was like a madhouse, and the assaults and drugs there are regular too.
It’s Missouri and the area is suburban, reasonably spread-out. That’s all that’s true.
luagha (e5bf64) — 12/4/2014 @ 10:50 am138.1) The old frog in the poaching pot scenario.
The same pattern is applicable to his emotional health.
DNF (3b2963) — 12/4/2014 @ 10:52 amNone of that matters. The choke hold is racist.
http://pix11.com/2014/07/22/video-of-another-choke-hold-arrest-indicates-the-banned-practice-may-be-more-widespread/
Who knew? I always thought what was behind the choke hold was the idea that, you know, you’d choke somebody and force them to submit.
I’ve been doing it wrong all these years. I’ve only ever applied choke holds to white guys.
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/4/2014 @ 10:53 amI wasn’t trolling last night. This is what I’m talking about. If you want Big Government, you need Big Police to go with.
Personally I prefer Big Oil and Big Pharma and Big (fill in the blank) because only Big Government will actually walk up to you with a badge and a gun and choke you to death.
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/4/2014 @ 10:58 amlaugha, Just to be clear, I was the one who brought up the point and first suggested that perhaps Wilson would have handled the situation differently had he been from a “big-city, more violent” neighborhood.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/4/2014 @ 11:00 amGranted per your observation, Ferguson may not be Paradise, but I don’t know whether or not his experience had trained him to expect that any encounter could turn into a violent resisting arrest.
One of my son’s mentors survived being shot point blank at a “routine” traffic stop (smaller caliber handgun, directly into vest). I am assuming that level of violence was not expected in Ferguson. Maybe I’m wrong.
Was listening to the Mark Levin show and a policeman caller brought up ‘positional asphyxia.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positional_asphyxia
It’s a definite addition to the case. When you lie on your belly and are restrained, your lungs stop getting air, you can’t breathe, and you can’t start getting air again. Weight, people pressing on you, and your own obesite and so on make it worse.
luagha (e5bf64) — 12/4/2014 @ 11:06 amThis death, I think, can be laid squarely at the feet of the American Lung Association. Seriously. Until a few years ago, single cigarettes and twosies were sold legally in convenience stores. Poor people who could not afford the $13.00 for a pack of 20 would buy them for 50 cents or a dollar. The American Lung Association lobbied to have that made illegal, creating black marketeers like Mr. Garner.
nk (dbc370) — 12/4/2014 @ 11:18 amI am assuming that level of violence was not expected in Ferguson. Maybe I’m wrong.
No. Homicide rates are slightly below national means. Most people are homeowners. The problem there is burglary and auto theft.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 12/4/2014 @ 11:18 amUntil a few years ago, single cigarettes and twosies were sold legally in convenience stores.
Where? I’ve never heard of such a thing, and I’ve four decades in New York State.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 12/4/2014 @ 11:20 amIf you want Big Government, you need Big Police to go with.
Excise taxes are a minor part of the revenue stream and antedate just about any other revenue stream bar property taxes.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 12/4/2014 @ 11:21 amI don’t know if legal or not, but it is common in parts of Philly, including to HS students.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/4/2014 @ 11:28 amAt the 7-11 kitty corner from where I live. And other places. But let me Google that for you. One link as good as many: http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2012820957_singlestick06m.html
nk (dbc370) — 12/4/2014 @ 11:29 amSo?
Steve57 (bc3f13) — 12/4/2014 @ 11:30 amArt Deco’s misrepresentations…My brother lived in Ferguson and I visited him there; thankfully, he has moved out. He worked delivering pizza for a restaurant 1 mile away from ground zero. Armed robberies like clockwork, once every few months.
City-Data has it the robbery rate in Ferguson bounces around a set point of 211 per 100,000. The Bureau of Justice Statistics assesses the robbery rate nationally at 290 per 100,000 or thereabouts. Ferguson is not the South Bronx.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 12/4/2014 @ 11:30 amYou are wrong. Missouri has a history of having crime statistics be close to real, while other jurisdictions use a variety of tricks to lower theirs. I realize what you are googling and how it is sending you wrong. I understand that statistics are all you can look up. In this case, they mislead you.
(Or rather, everyone else is misleading you and the Missouri crime stats are close to real. This is why, for example, it turned out that the St. Louis County coroner who was tapped for the inquiry was one of the top people in the field and her autopsy lined right up with the feds and the family’s celebrity autopsy.)
luagha (e5bf64) — 12/4/2014 @ 11:32 amYou are wrong. Missouri has a history of having crime statistics be close to real, while other jurisdictions use a variety of tricks to lower theirs.
Just make the numbers up if it helps you feel better.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 12/4/2014 @ 11:39 amMy suburban village assesses its robbery rate at 0 per 9,900~ total population. You know the old joke about averages? Bill Gates walks into a restaurant. If you use the mean, everybody becomes a billionaire. If you use the norm, Bill Gates is poor. If you use the median, everybody stays the same. And there’s all the other ways published crime statistics are not worth the paper they’re written on. Basically, car thefts are the only crime that is close to being accurately reported. Because insurance Homicides used to be too, until police departments started counting only the DOAs. If you’re alive on the emergency room gurney, you’re not homicided in the statistics in a lot of places.
nk (dbc370) — 12/4/2014 @ 11:42 amMD at 145
People are people. Small town, big city, there are all sorts. Good and bad. Wilson was a cop for several years and unless he was dense, he knew that.
labcatcher (61737c) — 12/4/2014 @ 11:43 amluagha, you have to get used to Art Deco. His MO is to make s*** up and then to double down with BS ad hominem when he’s called on it.
nk (dbc370) — 12/4/2014 @ 11:49 amno justice no peace! hands up shoot back! gun control only prevents black people from shooting back.
gunner (6a6a78) — 12/4/2014 @ 11:50 amYou may be right, labcatcher.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/4/2014 @ 11:54 amOn the other hand, sometimes first hand experience makes a difference in how big something impresses one’s psyche.
We saw that with HIV prevention. There was a time when older gays were all pretty careful with “safer sex” as they had all seen friends die of AIDS, then a younger cohort came along who weren’t nearly as concerned because they did not have the first hand experience.
Hence the parallel idea that perhaps Wilson had no experience with things such as being shot on a routine stop.
As far as the issue of Officer Wilson’s situation, that was not my original idea.
In the eyes of a Philly city cop, if you don’t give Wilson the benefit of the doubt of his setting, then his conduct is seen as bad policing technique,
because a good Philly cop would have never let himself get in a situation where the initial struggle occurred.
I’m familiar with the usual ad hominem. And I am happy to explain. Any research into crimonology will get into this standard problem with criminal statistics, and will gain some knowledge about which regions are known to cheat in which ways. Crime statistics are their own version of global warming temperature records in that way.
Second-guessing Darren Wilson is a coulda-woulda-shoulda situation. We don’t like the outcome, so of course a more skilled officer could have done it better. Mistakes were made. We live in a fallen world. By all accounts, Darren Wilson began with a standard admonishment to get out of the road. Only then, as violence began to unfold, did he realize that he was dealing with someone hopped up on drugs, who engaged in assault and robbery not ten minutes before. By then, all the street smarts he should have used were too late to use.
luagha (e5bf64) — 12/4/2014 @ 12:07 pmAs predicted, from The Philadelphia Daily News:
More at the link. Simple economics, which is, apparently too complicated for the left.
We told you so!
The economist Dana (f6a568) — 12/4/2014 @ 12:19 pmLet me be clear,
as I don’t know what purposes or cross-purposes different ones of us are working at.
I thought and think that Wilson was a reasonable guy doing a reasonable job and had someone unexpectedly go out of control crazy on him and things turned out the way they did fortunate for Wilson and unfortunate for Brown.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/4/2014 @ 12:20 pmIt was a Philly police officer, reflecting on appropriate policing methods that one is trained to use and practice every day, who said that a well-trained Philly cop would never have let the original confrontation happen the way it did. I don’t consider it second guessing as much as an after-action analysis.
I just heard about that today through the grapevine, Dana.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/4/2014 @ 12:23 pmNot only does it cut down on cigarette sales, but since people are going to other stores that is where they are buying milk and bread, etc., too.
if you don’t smoke then that means you’re not paying for grammy frost’s healthcares
probably because you hate children
happyfeet (a037ad) — 12/4/2014 @ 12:26 pmWhich is why I mentioned the issue of the setting. I would expect someone who has had personal colleagues shot at point blank range on routine stops to have more of an “anything could go wrong at any moment” attitude than someone who has never personally encountered that level of craziness.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/4/2014 @ 12:27 pmI think that’s a reasonable human expectation and not necessarily a good or bad reflection on Wilson.
MD, it was easily predictable: a $2.00 per pack/ $20.00 per carton increase, when people could just cross into Montgomery County and get cancer sticks for the previous price.
And, considering that poor people smoke cigarettes at higher rates than the more well-to-do, the Philadelphia School Board wound up increasing taxes on the poor; as a reich-wing Republican, who doesn’t smoke, I certainly approve of that! 🙂
And, I’d even guess — I don’t know this — that the owners of convenience stores in the outlying counties are more likely to be white than is the case for owners in the city.
Of course, the city is completely owned by the oh-so-compassionate Democrats, and gave like 80% of its votes to Barack Hussein Obama, so, in a way, it’s karmic justice.
The wryly amused Dana (f6a568) — 12/4/2014 @ 12:35 pmHis MO is to make s*** up and then to double down with BS ad hominem when he’s called on it.
If you have a complaint with City Data or the Bureau of Justice Statistics, take it to them.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 12/4/2014 @ 12:36 pmSteve57,
You ask “how is Pantaleo the individual responsible” for Garner’s death given how many different people seem to have contributed to Garner’s death. If his voluntary act was wrongful/criminal, the answer would be that as a causal matter, his voluntary act was a “substantial factor” in Garner’s death.
Which is a basis for full liability, if not for the “blue defense” that nk mentioned above.
Leviticus (f9a067) — 12/4/2014 @ 12:53 pmThe more times I watch the video, the more I believe that the Officers actions were entirely justified. It’s obvious that Garner is not going to go along with the program and the more time spent dancing around with him the worse it’s going to get. He was not killed for selling cigarettes, he died because he resisted arrest. Officers were responding to a citizens complaint about Garner, they weren’t there because they thought cigarette selling was priority. From what Garner said, the Officers knew him and had dealt with him in the past.
For whatever reason the Officer fronting Garner tries to take his arm to handcuff him and Garner physically resists that. OK, at this point Garner is going to go to jail. The problem is: how do you arrest somebody his size that doesn’t want to be arrested? I have read in the comments that the way they did it was wrong, that there had to be another way to do it, and that the force used was excessive. There are thousands of cops out there that would love for somebody to come out and show them a “nice” way to do that. Jerks being jerks cause these things to happen.
Garner is huge, the Officer behind Garner had to jump up to grab him by the neck to bring him to the ground. He was eventually successful and they ended up with Garner on his right side with the Officer behind him . He held onto his neck for 13 or 14 seconds with his left arm around Garner’s neck and his right hand either on Garner’s right chest area, or holding his own right hand, I couldn’t clearly see his right hand at all times. It appeared to me that the Officer released his left arm as soon as the dogpile arrived and either just before, or right after Garner said that he couldn’t breathe.
I didn’t see a “choke hold”; neither a bar arm nor a carotid. The bar arm is a choke and cuts off the air, and the carotid is a submission hold, cutting off blood to the brain. Both render the susp/fighter unconscious. I used the bar arm up until 78 or 79 when it became known that people were dying from the hyoid getting damaged. Both are effective and end resistance quickly.
Garner continued to say he couldn’t breathe and the Officers kept trying to cuff him up. There was a Sgt there and it looked to me like she was doing exactly what she was supposed to do, keeping a close eye on what was happening and I presume making sure that only the force necessary was used. I don’t know how long it took for Garner to die, but I strongly suspect that the fight brought on whatever caused him to die and he caused the fight to happen.
labcatcher (61737c) — 12/4/2014 @ 12:55 pmYesterday’s New York Post said they would postpone the release of the grand jury rsults until today, bit they didn’t.
This whole thing is a bit surreal.
How many times do doctors get indicted for murder when a patient dies? They don’t even when it is malpractice,, unless it is extremely egregious.
Now the policeman violated New York City Police Department procedure, and the reason it is prohivited is precisely because a not too healthy person could get killed, and what he did was uncalled for, but this is the police equivalent of malpractice.
Sammy Finkelman (7e7e58) — 12/4/2014 @ 1:00 pmWhy doesn’t Al Sharpton cut to the chase and just call for the passage of a Bill of Attainder?
You;ve got invicible ignorance about the case and invicible ignorance about an independent judiciary.
Sammy Finkelman (7e7e58) — 12/4/2014 @ 1:01 pmSorry, that last post was too long. In the next to last paragraph I meant to include that I don’t know if Pantaleo’s arm was long enough to actually apply a choke or carotid hold. One would need his left arm parallel to the ground (choke) and the wrist or forearm under the chin and the right applying upward force, the other would need him to get his elbow directly below and under Garners chin and the right applying pressure in toward his shoulder.
labcatcher (61737c) — 12/4/2014 @ 1:08 pmEric Garner, did not die from compression to the neck. This is already the result of undue influence.
He very clearly died from an asthma attack (unless at the very end, after he was down on the ground, he was prevented from breathing)
The interesting thing here is it was videotaped, and we still have controversy.
The cop in his testimony contradicted the video when he said he was trying to end his hold soon, because he didn’t. He is telling the truth when he said he tought EMS would take care of any problems.
He never thought he was seriously injuring him. And possible he thought Eric Garner was malingering, the sort of thing prison gards have been known to do.
Sammy Finkelman (7e7e58) — 12/4/2014 @ 1:17 pmHow many Americans are in poor health? Overweight? Asthmatic? If this choke-hold maneuver tends to exacerbate these issues to the point of death, why are they used EVER?
Geez Louise, I put on some weight with my last baby, guess I better be extra careful…
Georganne (e37667) — 12/4/2014 @ 1:18 pmAl Sharpton says nothing about asthma – and a person can die from an asthma attack – because that’s not the kind of “facts” he wants, and besides if everybody agreed, where would he be?
http://asthma.about.com/od/adultasthma/a/ad_fatal_asthma.htm
Sammy Finkelman (7e7e58) — 12/4/2014 @ 1:21 pmMr Finkelman wrote:
Michael Brown did not die from being shot; he died due to the pre-existing condition that his body was too weak to survive having bullet holes.
The sarcastic Dana (f6a568) — 12/4/2014 @ 1:25 pmnow that we know this racist attack on an innocent black man minding his own business was supervised by a BLACK female police Sergent will the outrage be directed at her for delberately killing one of her male oppressors?
redc1c4 (2b3c9e) — 12/4/2014 @ 1:32 pmI understand, MD.
Sammy, look up that Positional Asphyxia link I posted. You’ll enjoy it. You especially.
luagha (e5bf64) — 12/4/2014 @ 1:32 pm176. Georganne (e37667) — 12/4/2014 @ 1:18 pm
In fact it was not supposed to be used.
But I don’t think it was the chokehold or whatever it was – there is some dispute as to whether what he did was a chokehold or not quite a chokehold – that brought on the asthma attack.
It’s happened before.
Sammy Finkelman (7e7e58) — 12/4/2014 @ 1:37 pmPositional Asphyxia is a possibility – because it is not clear to me what happened when he was down on the ground – but positional asphyxia is not the same thing as a chokehold.
And even then it is asthma, or cardiac arrest, caused in large part, by extreme stress.
The problem with what the police did was not the chokehold – it was the larger issue of not letting him move freely after he complained.
They brought on a heart attack or a fatal asthma attack.
They needed to back off.
Sammy Finkelman (7e7e58) — 12/4/2014 @ 1:44 pmlabcatcher (61737c) — 12/4/2014 @ 12:55 pm
I didn’t think that was too long, in fact I thought it was helpful. You apparently have the kind of first hand real life experience that I don’t, addressing the questions I had.
A lesson that seems never to be repeated too often,
do not prematurely jump to conclusions
observe the details
look where things add up consistently or don’t.
One side of a story sounds good until you hear the other side (Proverbs).
The narrative from the beginning with Martin was some innocent kid being hunted down by a racist vigilante, the narrative helped by journalistic malpractice/malfeasance in selective editing of a 911 recording and testimony of witnesses who had something to hide. Once the facts were clear for examination, that was not what happened, even if one thinks there was enough info to find Z. guilty of something.
From the beginning with Brown, it was a kid with his hands up saying don’t shoot, stopped for no reason on his way to his grandma’s house on the way to college (the first literally, the second figuratively), with suppression of the truth by intimidation from the crowd from the beginning, and again witness testimony of someone with something to hide.
With Garner, it’s that a person was killed by a “chokehold” that was unnecessary. But it apparently wasn’t a “chokehold” at all, and even if it was, perhaps not long enough to cause unconsciousness, let alone death. And even if it was, the use of such is not illegal in NY State, simply against NYC policy from what I’ve read. And whatever else one thinks about it, the situation arose from the police responding to a citizen’s complaint and attempting to enforce laws they were told by the mayor to enforce, and as said, if someone has a “nice” way of effecting the arrest of a 400 lb uncooperative male, please demonstrate.
All situations tragic, none were things anyone expected at the beginning of the day, things that a millisecond different decision might have changed things completely.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/4/2014 @ 1:52 pm9. MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:06 pm
It most likely means he is having an asthma attack.
Breitbart says:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/12/03/actual-facts-Eric-Garner
Sammy Finkelman (7e7e58) — 12/4/2014 @ 1:53 pm“now that we know this racist attack on an innocent black man minding his own business was supervised by a BLACK female police Sergent will the outrage be directed at her for delberately killing one of her male oppressors?”
redc1c4 – What is wrong with this country? No mother should have to fear for her son’s life every time he robs a store.
#Trayvon/Eric/Michael
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/4/2014 @ 1:56 pmThe police are guilty of
1) Not understanding that some people can be in very poor health.
2) Not understanding that trying to arrest someone when they are resisting arrest, and especially restraining their motions, can be very stressful and EVEN FATAL when they are in poor health.
3) Disbelieving that Eric Garner was having a medical emergency, or AT LEAST ONE THAT THEY HAD TO PAY IMMEDIATE ATTENTION TO.
Sammy Finkelman (7e7e58) — 12/4/2014 @ 1:58 pm“They needed to back off.”
We make jokes like this in my martial arts class. Like, you’re in a serious life-or-death struggle situation, and someone gasps something like, “I can’t breathe!”
What, ya gonna let go, let him get up, check to see when he’s ready to start again?
Complaining of injury or too much force is a common convict tactic to get police to go light and make opportunities for them. Like crying wolf, it hurts the ones who are telling the truth, unfortunately.
luagha (e5bf64) — 12/4/2014 @ 2:01 pm(My martial arts teacher, when he was bouncing at a bar, did witness a fight out on the sidewalk once where, after thirty seconds of furiously whaling and wrassling on one another, one guy called a time-out with the ‘T’ signal with his hands, and the other guy confusedly honored it. They huffed and puffed and caught their breath, and then jumped each other again.)
luagha (e5bf64) — 12/4/2014 @ 2:04 pmI’ve seen some people try to describe the hold as a “headlock”. A headlock is a comparatively safe hold that has the major danger of creating cauliflower ears – why do you think wrestlers(as opposed to ‘rasslers) wear that silly headgear? A headlock encircles the head, over the ears, and is a control hold. Look at the video. “99”‘s forearm in UNDER Garner’s chin. It’s a misapplied chokehold.
Chokehold’s are illegal in wrestling because of the danger. I was taught that hold at the feet of an old SFC, and we were all instructed (when it was our turn to be victim/tackling dummy)to not struggle because of the potential for lethal damage. If you were using this for real, it was because of its speed, not because of its non-lethal potential. If the object of your affections thrashed around and got his larynx crushed you had to hold on stronger and longer. Remember (something that the folks militarizing the police forget), the Army (or Marines – don’t want to get into that old argument) is there to break things and kill people. This hold is appropriate for the military, not for civilian police.
I wish my buddy, the patholgist, hadn’t retired to AZ, so I don’t have a good answer, but someone with serious asthma and heart problems may be killed by something as simple as a 20% reduction in airway space, and damage to the trachea may produce that level of swelling. What I don’t know is if that would be detectable at an autopsy, and if that is what the ME was trying to say.
Bud (30d398) — 12/4/2014 @ 2:07 pmFrom MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/4/2014 @ 10:37 am
Medically, it is well established that someone with bad and inadequately treated asthma loses an appreciation of just how bad their breathing is at baseline, and when they “feel it getting worse”, they often die unless they get put on a ventilator in time. Now, I realize there is the “egg-shell skull” issue, but it is very possible that any increased exertion might have been enough to trigger a fatal event.
The simple reality is that if his asthma was so poorly controlled that he wheezed when he talked and could not walk a block without resting, he could have had a fatal asthma exacerbation no matter what the police did in effecting his arrest, perhaps even including a loud agitated argument.
It seems to me, in my unlawyerliness, that if the police were doing a legal act in effecting an arrest, they are not responsible for untoward events due to the “egg shell skull” doctrine.
No, the police cannot expect every person they apprehend to have a medical emergency when arrested and obey “stop” whenever someone they are arresting says so.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/4/2014 @ 2:09 pmThat would work real well.
“It seems to me, in my unlawyerliness, that if the police were doing a legal act in effecting an arrest, they are not responsible for untoward events due to the “egg shell skull” doctrine.”
– MD in Philly
I think you are correct in this assessment. A wrongful act is necessary to implicate that rule. The key question, as you indicate, is whether the officers’ actions were wrongful in some way.
Leviticus (f9a067) — 12/4/2014 @ 2:19 pmlabcatcher (61737c) — 12/4/2014 @ 12:55 pm
I don’t think theer any complaint about Garner.
There was a general complaint, going back some time, about problems in the area – fights, and people selling drugs – and one of the things the police had noted was that this man was selling loose cigarettes.
The area was periodically checked by police.
Garner had been arrested a number of times before for the same thing.
It was getting to the point where he was maybe even getting personally targeted:
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/nypd-chief-remains-silent-eric-garner-mess-article-1.1896110
It probably has something got to do with the fact it was more visible and brazen. In other neighborhoods, it is the storeowners who sell loosies, and they do it quietly.
Probably somebody involved in smuggling cigarettes has contributed to Al Sharpton.
Sammy Finkelman (7e7e58) — 12/4/2014 @ 2:23 pmBud, If it was a chokehold it certainly was misapplied. I have never seen or heard of anyone trying to choke out someone one handed. That would be ineffective at best. I still think it looks like he used the neck to take Garner to the ground.
All the talk of the recent miilitaization of the police is somewhat amusing. My first training Officer in 1971 was a World War II Vet. He had tales of fights while walking a solo foot beat in downtown Los Angeles and choking people out using the bar arm control hold figured prominently in those tales. He said he learned the bar arm by getting choked out a lot while in the academy.
labcatcher (61737c) — 12/4/2014 @ 2:29 pmluagha @141 about Ferguson, Missouri:
This, of course, did not make it into the mainstream media, and this is the first I read of this on a blog, but I could tell something was ver wrong over there, because the complaint aboutthe robbery taht Michael Brown did was not made by the store, but by a customer, and the store was at pains to let people know that they never reported robberies to the police.
Sammy Finkelman (7e7e58) — 12/4/2014 @ 2:30 pmre: “egg shell skull”
That’s a civil liability issue.
http://www.icbcclaiminfo.com/node/161
It may also be apprlied to criminal law
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_skull
In the UK:
http://e-lawresources.co.uk/Causation-in-criminal-liability.php
Sammy Finkelman (7e7e58) — 12/4/2014 @ 2:39 pmSammy:
I read that, too, but a 911 call was made by the employee at the convenience store that Brown robbed. Don’t you think it’s possible the owner said that because he hoped people wouldn’t blame him and would leave his store alone during the riots?
DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/4/2014 @ 2:42 pmI am probably going to regret this:
Sammy at 192 I don’t think theer any complaint about Garner.
Actually there was see
Is there anything anyone can post without drawing a long irrelevant post from you? It was an ongoing complaint and Garner had been contacted in the past.
labcatcher (61737c) — 12/4/2014 @ 2:43 pmWhoops
labcatcher (61737c) — 12/4/2014 @ 2:43 pmhttp://nypost.com/2014/08/14/not-a-chokehold-truth-of-the-garner-arrest/
labcatcher (61737c) — 12/4/2014 @ 2:44 pmand damage to the trachea may produce that level of swelling
Per news reports, no such damage. Not sure if that preliminary conclusion has been amended.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 12/4/2014 @ 2:53 pmFrom the link at 199:
The question is, does this describe what happened when EMS came correctly? What was Garner’s condition when they got there? Wss he breathing? Did they thnk it was too late, or what?
This would mean that this may be more a problem with EMS than anything else.
A question could be, though, were they misled by the cops on the scene into not taking this seriously? Or are they just incompetent?
Sammy Finkelman (7e7e58) — 12/4/2014 @ 3:13 pmGreat. I’m sure that will be a factor in the civil suit. If by “blue defense” you mean “you take your victim as you find him” then that is the where it counts. Then, yes, you’re entirely responsible for the damages even if someone had underlying conditions you weren’t aware of. Not in a criminal trial. There you have to intend or at least have some reason to suspect that you’ll cause the resulting damage.
Plus, according to the press, there are three primary causes of death. And no reason to link Pantaleo’s willful (though not illegal, just [apparently, perhaps, maybe] against departmental policy) act to any one of these three primary causes of death.
You might as well have thrown darts to pick which cop was going to take the fall for this.
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/4/2014 @ 3:32 pmthere were TWO police Sergeants there supervising the incident, and it would seem that neither of them had a problem with the TTPs being used by the officers wrestling with the criminal.
furthermore, news reports are that both of the supervisors were given immunity in order to get their testimony to the grand jury
sounds to me like the usual suspects are out to railroad the white cop who was just trying o do his j*b.
so much for justice in racist Obamamerica: if you’re a straight white male, it’s open season on you from all sides… federal, state, MFM and your fellow citizens of color, LGBTetc, and all the other professional victims & SJWs.
redc1c4 (b340a6) — 12/4/2014 @ 3:50 pm#handsupdontshooticantbreatheunicorns
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/4/2014 @ 3:51 pmDRJ wrote:
Ain’t that great? The situation in Ferguson is so bad that the owner, who had already been roughed up by the gentle giant, would rather say that hey, it’s all cool, go ahead and rob me again, ’cause I won’t call the cops!
The policeman Dana (1b79fa) — 12/4/2014 @ 3:51 pm“Great. I’m sure that will be a factor in the civil suit. If by “blue defense” you mean “you take your victim as you find him” then that is the where it counts.”
– Steve57
By “blue defense,” I mean (and I thought nk meant) that this guy will get away with wrongful conduct because he is a cop. I’m not referring to the “Eggshell Skull/Take the plaintiff as you find him” rule from the civil tort realm – I’m referring to the “substantial factor” test from the criminal homicide realm, which says (if I recall correctly) that where any of several actual causes would be sufficient to cause a death, then the mere fact that each cause was a “substantial factor” in causing death is sufficient to establish proximate cause.
Basically, under that test, if Cop 1’s conduct (e.g. sitting on Victim’s back) would have been sufficient to cause him to suffocate, and Cop 2’s conduct (e.g. putting Victim in a chokehold) would have been sufficient to cause him to suffocate, then the conduct of each cop can be deemed a “substantial factor” in Victim’s death and be sufficient for a proximate cause determination.
… which means nothing if there was no wrongful conduct, which is why (I think) the debate has centered more properly on whether or not the conduct of Pantaleo was wrongful in any way.
Leviticus (f9a067) — 12/4/2014 @ 4:08 pmAnd I see that I failed to address your good point about intent (and the importance of Garner’s health conditions in causing a result that Pantaleo likely did not expect).
But there are several culpable mental states (including negligence), and several types of criminal homicide to go with them. If a random guy put another random guy in a chokehold in a streetfight and killed him, I think a negligent homicide indictment (if not a manslaughter indictment) would not surprise anyone.
Leviticus (f9a067) — 12/4/2014 @ 4:12 pm“there were TWO police Sergeants there supervising the incident, and it would seem that neither of them had a problem with the TTPs being used by the officers wrestling with the criminal.”
– redC1C4
That’s pretty much the fox guarding the henhouse, isn’t it?
Leviticus (f9a067) — 12/4/2014 @ 4:14 pmThat’s very bothersome. Irksome and disturbing. When the sergeant, captain, chief says “The officers followed department policy”.
nk (dbc370) — 12/4/2014 @ 4:24 pm— Cutting off the supply of blood to the brain by pressure on the carotids is only a submission hold.
— Cutting off the blood supply to the brain kills people if it’s for long enough.
— Who’s more submissive than the dead?
Bud has it right; labcatcher is blowing smoke. A submission hold is something like a wristlock, a straight arm lock, a hammer lock. An arm wrapped around the neck is strangulation, and I appreciate Bud’s point that what’s taught to soldiers to use against an enemy combatant is not necessarily appropriate for the “submission” of a civilian.
nk (dbc370) — 12/4/2014 @ 4:28 pmPolice to Suspect – Before we take you into custody we would like to ask you a few brief questions about your medical condition and history which may better inform us how to approach your arrest. Keep in mind that privacy laws give us no rights to ask these quests and your cooperation is strictly voluntary. Also keep in mind that we have no formal medical training so that the answers you give us may not actually mean jack sh*t to us.
What could go wrong?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/4/2014 @ 4:29 pmAnd we’re back to Lamas With Hats arguments. If what you do kills people, you have to be justified in doing something that kills people from the very start. You cannot claim a defense that it was easier to kill this person than you thought. If it was reasonable for the police officer to use that choke hold under those circumstances, he’s innocent. If it was not reasonable for him to use it, Garner’s medical condition does not exonerate him.
nk (dbc370) — 12/4/2014 @ 4:38 pm“And we’re back to Lamas With Hats arguments.”
nk – I don’t see any llamas or hats or choke hold. If somebody resisting lawful commands of police results in reasonable force being used against them in the process of arrest, the arrestee brings the consequences of that upon themselves.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/4/2014 @ 4:44 pmI apologize if this detail has been introduced earlier:
http://minx.cc:1080/?post=353544
narciso (ee1f88) — 12/4/2014 @ 5:00 pmNK, I must have missed where Bud said I was blowing smoke. If that’s what you think, say so.
You are a drama queen. Yes, the carotid hold can kill people. In practice, on the street when the fight gets (or got) to the point where it was applied, the Officer applying it would be told when the suspect was out. Nobody wants the grief involved in a death or even a serious injury.
Wrist twists and locks both front and rear are pain compliance holds. They don’t always work. Actually no techniques “Always” work. I have never heard of police use of straight arm or hammer locks. In fact I don’t even know what they are or how they are applied.
What’s taught to soldiers is primarily to shoot people and obey orders, When I was in basic (1963), we spent about 4 hours total in the “pit” learning judo throws. I don’t recall any choke holds. During the academy (1971) we spent 2 hours a day a week for 5 months on arrest techniques with heavy emphasis on bar arm control and carotid holds as well as gun takeaways.
Like most of your critiques of police work, you don’t have a clue.
labcatcher (61737c) — 12/4/2014 @ 5:06 pmI think the original idea was that the officer was excessive in use of force de facto by the fact the person “died from a choke hold”, i.e., he put pressure on his neck adequate to block the blood flow to his brain or block air movement or both, and maintained it long enough to kill him. In order to succeed in that, the policemen had to purposefully maintain the grip after the person had lapsed unconscious.
We have inadequate (clearly documented) details from the autopsy whether there was any physical evidence consistent with that severe of a “chokehold” and only a vague phrase “neck compression”.
View of the video in the opinion of many does not show a hold using both arms in appropriate position using sufficient force on the neck to collapse the carotids and/or occlude the trachea.
What it shows is a person with a one arm hold around the neck as part of a group subduing a large man. There is nothing to suggest that there was a need or intent to control the suspect by making him pass out. The person can move air adequately to say, “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe” (it was twice, wasn’t it? The video is now unavailable above).
In other words, in the beginning the fellow is dead and everyone decides it must have been too much force used, because there was no life and death situation justifying the use of lethal force.
But when it appears that the use of force was no more than necessary to effect an arrest, and that amount of force resulted in a fatal exacerbation of a medical condition, then it is a totally different ball game.
Say for a moment that what happened was that the guy tried to run away and the police chased him, then he collapses and dies from an asthma attack, are you going to try to argue that the police were remiss in chasing him, since trying to run away is what killed him?
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/4/2014 @ 5:10 pmI think that link was new, narciso, though some of the information had been alluded to.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/4/2014 @ 5:16 pmlabcatcher, it is my opinion that bud has it right about the choke hold. It was my opinion, not bud’s, that you were blowing smoke. I did not structure that sentence correctly. You are using “policeze” (“copglish”?) — “R/O deployed his sidearm and effected a Terry stop of the subject” type jargon.
Straight arm lock (one variant): http://www.ultimatejujitsu.com/learn-jujitsu-techniques/traditional-jujitsu-techniques/white-belt/straight-arm-lock/
nk (dbc370) — 12/4/2014 @ 5:22 pmHammer lock: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OddNosOP-T8 It’s to your credit that you don’t know it; it’s a favorite of bullies.
thanks for the clarification, MD, even taking this into account, what was the urgency to this situation, the NYPD weren’t this proactive with Zale Thompson, on another recent case, why did they insist on the chokehold, or variation thereinm
narciso (ee1f88) — 12/4/2014 @ 5:24 pm#215: Ace links the Gateway Pundit post i shared here last night.
redc1c4 (269d8e) — 12/4/2014 @ 5:29 pmummm, last time i looked, Sergeants were responsible for the acts of the patrol officers under them, especially if they are present at the scene. furthermore, if there was any question as to their failure to act, why were both of them given immunity prior to testifying before the grand jury?
lets face it: the junior white cop is a sacrificial lamb, being thrown to the racist mob & their attending SJW confederates.
welcome to the violent, lawless, racist nightmare that is Obamamerica.
i hope this is the change you wanted, because, sooner or later, you or someone you love will be the sacrifice, instead of some stranger on the far side of the country, that it’s easy to vilify based upon deliberately dishonest reporting of the incident… and jumping on the outrage bandwagon is easy.
redc1c4 (269d8e) — 12/4/2014 @ 5:35 pma friend tipped me off to this interesting insight into the next atty general candidate:
http://nlpc.org/stories/2014/12/04/ag-nominee-loretta-lynch-had-mixed-reaction-duke-lacrosse-rape-case
narciso (ee1f88) — 12/4/2014 @ 5:47 pmI was startled last night listening to Kelly’s Fox news. She was interviewing several prominent policemen, and the bottom line was that once a cop says you are under arrest, anything up to death can be a justified by the policeman if you resist him in any way. This would certainly have changed Hollywood’s take on the wild west. Consider this story line: Scene 1. Wyatt Earp encounters a villain about 100 yards away swimming in the river. Wyatt yell’s “You’re under arrest!” The bad guy dives beneath the water and 20 seconds later he surfaces to take a breath. He is 15 yards farther away. The breath is his last. Wyatt has drawn his Buntline Special and places two rounds in the back of the villain’s head. End of scene. Scene 2. Wyatt knows the bad guy can’t hear in his right ear. Encountering the bad guy as he leaves the saloon, Wyatt steps to the bad guys right and mumbles “You’re under arrest.” The bad lifts his left arm to cup his left ear and says “What?” It is his last word. Wyatt drills him with two shots to the heart from 8′ for failing to submit to arrest. Where’s the drama, the character development, the conflict between fight or flight, good and evil, duty and compassion?
Or consider the St. Francis No Kill Animal Shelter in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Nine game wardens and four county sheriff deputies descend on the facility, and at gun point herd the humans into a corral where it is made clear that they can’t use their cell phones for pictures or communication on pain of death while the game wardens search for a wild creature that they feel duty bound to kill. What if one of the herded humans defies the deputy and takes a picture with a cell phone he hid away? Should this miscreant be killed despite the fact that this is a no kill animal shelter?
Where are we going with this crap! The Rule of Law is supposed to protect us from the King, not enable his minions to murder us as a matter of convenience. Much as I admire that skinny little cop for daring to take on a 350 pound, black-market, tax-avoiding, welfare-cheating (perhaps) street merchant, the cop’s judgment was horribly faulty. Especially when the “villain” indicated that he wanted to end what he considered his victimization. The use of deadly force should be reserved for situations where the cop or someone else’s life is in danger. I have known a few cops, and one I worked with closely would have listened to what was said, and then talked this thing thru. It goes with being a good cop.
bobathome (5d64cd) — 12/4/2014 @ 5:54 pmThank you, bobathome. You said it all better than anybody else on this thread.
(Except DRJ. Nobody says anything better than DRJ.)
nk (dbc370) — 12/4/2014 @ 6:01 pm201. New York Post July 20, 2014: (1:40pm)
http://nypost.com/2014/07/20/4-ems-workers-barred-from-duty-after-chokehold-death/
New York Post July 20, 2014 | 5:41pm:
http://nypost.com/2014/07/20/4-ems-workers-barred-from-duty-after-chokehold-death/
Sammy Finkelman (7e7e58) — 12/4/2014 @ 6:01 pmActually, this should have been the first link in the previous comment:
http://nypost.com/2014/07/20/cops-didnt-give-medical-assistance-to-man-after-chokehold/
Sammy Finkelman (7e7e58) — 12/4/2014 @ 6:06 pmThanks nk! It may be Obola’s intent to pit us one against another, but we don’t have to go along with it. And I know the cop doesn’t feel great about what happened, but it shouldn’t have happened.
bobathome (5d64cd) — 12/4/2014 @ 6:14 pmSpeaking of JEF: http://www.theonion.com/articles/obama-calls-for-turretmounted-video-cameras-on-all,37586/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=Pic:1:Default
nk (dbc370) — 12/4/2014 @ 6:27 pm“ummm, last time i looked, Sergeants were responsible for the acts of the patrol officers under them, especially if they are present at the scene. furthermore, if there was any question as to their failure to act, why were both of them given immunity prior to testifying before the grand jury?”
– redC1C4
Ummm, the last time I looked, the approval of the State of the misconduct of its agents does nothing to validate that misconduct. On either count.
Leviticus (9382da) — 12/4/2014 @ 6:59 pmLeviticus, did you ever get the submission effectuating personal interaction device we were talking about in better times, and if so in what caliber and configuration?
nk (dbc370) — 12/4/2014 @ 7:06 pmYou are such a gentleman, nk.
labcatcher, I know you disagree with nk but he isn’t a drama queen and he does know about these topics. Let’s all take a breath so we can continue talking about this, okay?
DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/4/2014 @ 7:25 pmBobathome,
I usually agree with what you write, but nobody used deadly force on this idiot. He was suffering from a whole bunch of health problems. He was doing something he had been contacted for, and maybe even arrested for, previously. He resisted arrest and didn’t give the officers a medical history so that they could treat him differently from everyone else. Read what MD said in 216.
He goes down to the ground and begins saying that he can’t breathe. Lots of suspects claim that they: can’t breathe, broke my arm, I’m having a heart attack, you’re killing me, etc. Let go of them and the fight is back on. My grandkids love watching cops and you can hear it on there too.
NK which choke hold does bud have it right about? Bar arm or Carotid? Which one did the cops recently copy from the military? I was able to relate how I came to the conclusion that the cops have been using since at least 1946 -50. I don’t recall when he became a cop. Can you substantiate how you came to the conclusion that using the bar arm or carotid is a militarization of the police?
It’s not policeze to say that that the carotid is a compliance hold it’s what it’s taught as. Twist locks and stuff like that are taught as pain compliance holds. If you are going to correct what someone says you should at least know what you are talking about. Thanks for the links, but they’re irrelevant to what we’re discussing.
labcatcher (61737c) — 12/4/2014 @ 7:29 pmDRJ, Sorry, but yes he is. When he accused me of blowing smoke (lying) because he didn’t like something I said, posts a ridiculous rejoinder, reminiscent of the arguments of my teenage grandchildren, then I find him to be a drama queen.
I don’t post often unless it’s something I know about, he posts on every issue. I don’t know if he knows what he’s talking about on the other things, and don’t particularly care. Like sammy’s posts, I tend to skip over them.
labcatcher (61737c) — 12/4/2014 @ 7:44 pmWe’re guys, DRJ, we talk rough. labcatcher can say what he likes.
nk (dbc370) — 12/4/2014 @ 8:02 pmlabcatcher, I saw the video and he did not resist arrest in an aggressive way. As I recall, he said something like “let’s end it here.” At that point the skinny cop jumps him and from then on, the victim did nothing to endanger the cops. His arms were up, but all he used them for was for balance as he was tripped and dropped to the ground. The cops were nowhere in danger other than having him fall on them. This was basically suicide by cops.
It did not have to be that way. I saw my cop friend talk down violent gangsters in the middle of a very high testosterone confrontation (think “midnight basketball” that universal liberal solution to dysfunctional inner cities,) and everyone walked away a lot wiser. He also took down murders with shotguns, so he wasn’t just a goody two shoes, but he knew how to listen.
I reject the idea that every meeting with a police officer can rightfully end with your death if he simply says “you are under arrest.” Which is what got me going on this topic in the first place. I rather doubt the cops had any idea they would kill this man, but when four guys jump one guy who won’t defend himself, death is certainly a possibility. This is not the America I want my grandkids to grow up in.
bobathome (5d64cd) — 12/4/2014 @ 8:07 pmMake that murderers … who had hours before killed someone using a shotgun.
bobathome (5d64cd) — 12/4/2014 @ 8:09 pmBut, oh heck, I just can’t resist.
I don’t post often unless it’s something I know about, he posts on every issue.
(Snicker) “A man’s got to know his limitations.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VrFV5r8cs0
nk (dbc370) — 12/4/2014 @ 8:09 pmThat’s not true. Not even in Texas, which gives law enforcement quite a bit of leeway to effect arrests.
http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/docs/PE/htm/PE.9.htm
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/4/2014 @ 8:37 pm“let’s end it here” I thought meant he was not going to put up with the police harassing him anymore, that he was going to make his 31st arrest his last,
Why were there 4 cops and 2 sergeants around him? Because he was not cooperating. How do you get he was “not defending himself”? If he was “not defending himself” all he had to do was turn around and let them put cuffs on. After he refused to do that it was not a matter of “not defending himself” but that in reality he couldn’t put up a fight because of his asthma.
Look, there were 250,000+ arrests on misdemeanors in NYC I have heard/read, whatever this incident may be, if it is the worst anyone can point to what are they complaining about? This was not, “Let’s go see who we can terrorize today”, it was “If you won’t come along peacefully, we’ll have to take you anyway, not so peacefully.”
There was a post over on PowerLine about another of the Ferguson witnesses, a fellow who had been arrested and convicted of a few crimes, who didn’t like cops in general but knew life would be worse without them, and thought Brown was crazy for not just going along with Wilson. Sometimes people do really stupid things. perhaps the police could have done it better, but they were not the ones who made the worst decisions that day.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/4/2014 @ 8:37 pm“Leviticus, did you ever get the submission effectuating personal interaction device we were talking about in better times, and if so in what caliber and configuration?”
– nk
Not yet – basically because I ended up really broke throughout the last year of school. But now that I’m making some income, it’s back on the radar. My uncle continually recommends .38 revolvers with shrouded hammers as a starter.
Leviticus (9382da) — 12/4/2014 @ 8:55 pmSee if your local gun store/range(s) rents pistols for the purpose of trying them out before buying one of them. That will help a lot.
nk (dbc370) — 12/4/2014 @ 9:02 pmNk, I have a few pistols, but I need to get serious about range time. I like .357s a lot. Ruger SP101, a Vaquero I adore in single action, and a 1892S carbine.
Need to get a good semiautomatic, but I would be unfaithful to .357. Sigh.
I once put a few clips of .50AE through a Desert Eagle. Fun, but impractical.
Simon Jester (ab97cd) — 12/4/2014 @ 9:49 pmre #223: nk brought up the NY guidelines way back in #13 and I quoted some of it in #22.
seeRpea (2a32aa) — 12/4/2014 @ 10:07 pmThe ‘big time cops’ are wrong or they got caught trying to communicate well in sound bites.
(or maybe there is a state out there that does allow for deadly force when not called for by the actions of the suspect)
It would indeed if the “misconduct” doesn’t consist of of an illegal act, but merely what falls within and what does not fall within state approved guidelines. By definition, then, if the state approves of the conduct it does not constitute misconduct.
A choke hold isn’t illegal. It’s been banned by the NYPD as a matter of policy, though, since 1993. But what exactly has been banned? If somehow Pantaleo thought that maneuver was acceptable and no on ever told him otherwise, as none of the supervisors did in this case, then he committed no misconduct. Even if the city administration intended to ban it, if that never got communicated to the rank and file then the rank and file wouldn’t be guilty of any misconduct. If anyone is guilty of misconduct it would be the city officials who were supposed to train the rank and file in city-approved policies and failed to do so.
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/5/2014 @ 1:56 amBy definition, then, if the state approves of the conduct it does not constitute misconduct.
That’s what Eichmann said!
nk (dbc370) — 12/5/2014 @ 4:53 amBobtahome.
I have never said or impliedt “that every meeting with a police officer can rightfully end with your death if he simply says “you are under arrest.” That is ridiculous.
What I do say is that Garner brought his death on himself. He was in poor health and it was obvious to me and apparently to the officers on the scene that he was not going to cooperate with the Officers and in fact resisted being cuffed. I am not sure of the law in NY, but if what has been reported is true, he would likely have been taken to the station, cited and released. He had been there before and must have known that.
Seeing your friend talk down some midnight basketballer is great, I have seen barricaded suspects talked out of houses and families saved. Neither of those incidents has anything to do with this.
labcatcher (61737c) — 12/5/2014 @ 5:03 amAre you OK, nk?
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/5/2014 @ 5:55 amI was just
nk (dbc370) — 12/5/2014 @ 5:58 amfollowing ordersenforcing department policy, Steve.But, unfortunately, that is the qualified immunity rule. In Section 1983 (civil rights) cases, anyway. If a public official has not received letters from three attorneys, and a Papal encyclical, telling him his conduct is unlawful, he is immune.
nk (dbc370) — 12/5/2014 @ 6:02 amYou’re a good german, nk.
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/5/2014 @ 6:05 amOnly from the Visigoth line, Steve.
nk (dbc370) — 12/5/2014 @ 6:17 amnotice how somethings occupy 24/7 attention, and others are whitewashed:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/benghazi-report_820665.html?page=2
narciso (ee1f88) — 12/5/2014 @ 6:23 ammd @216.
Eleven times, according to what I read in one of the newspapers. Afterwards, neither the police nor the EMS people seemed to understand what had happened to him.
The scene is described here:
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/harry-siegel-lonesome-death-eric-garner-article-1.2032281
They didn’t even seem to realize he was unconscious for a while (which probably means that none of them thought anybody had done anything to him that should have caused that.)
He had coughed at least once after he was down on the ground.
Finally, they faced up to the fact he was unconscious, and clumsily put him on a stretcher. It was later determined that he had died on the way to the hospital.
Sammy Finkelman (7e7e58) — 12/5/2014 @ 6:41 am246. labcatcher (61737c) — 12/5/2014 @ 5:03 am
Even worse, after he was down on the ground, they may have thought he was playing possum, as people engaging in civil disobediance sometimes do, and ths looked like a form of civil disobedience. It took them quite a long time to appredciate the medical emergency, and the EMS people didn’t understand it either.
Having ascertained he had a pulse, the EMS lady walked off.
Sammy Finkelman (7e7e58) — 12/5/2014 @ 6:48 amSteve, thanks for clarifying the right to self defense, and I’ll check out the earlier post by nk that seeRpea mentioned. And Doc, I agree with you that the victim was drawing a line in the sand. But that was the extent of his defiance as near as I could see. That statement could have been used to draw him out and maybe get this resolved without the use of force. And labcatcher, midnight basketball was the location of the dispute, it wasn’t about basketball, and there were two 20-something gangsters, one female, and a very frightened high school custodian who were involved. It was resolved in a fairly permanent fashion with no violence. I was very concerned and amazed to see that it could be talked thru.
Just as an hypothetical, what if one of the veterinarians at the animal shelter told the deputy that she had a right to keep her cell phone and take pictures on her own property. Would the deputy be ok if he then said, “you are resisting the lawful order of a policeman,” and then slugged her, taking the phone from her unconscious body? What if the other members of the staff linked arms and formed a circle around her to prevent the attack. Would the deputy then have the right to shot them? I’m asking these questions because it could have happened (it was an actual incident,) and presumably the assault team of game wardens and deputy sheriffs had gone over these possibilities before they raided the animal shelter.
bobathome (5d64cd) — 12/5/2014 @ 7:49 amthere’s much sound and fury, signifying nothing, then as now,
http://www.jammiewf.com/2014/non-story-of-the-year-gwb-probe-finds-no-link-to-christie-msnbc-hardest-hit/
narciso (ee1f88) — 12/5/2014 @ 7:49 amAs I said before, there was a reason there were 4 officers and 2 sergeants around. I am assume the initial contact with Garner had happened several minutes before and that the confrontation was going nowhere. At some point the police need to go ahead and act if they plan on making an arrest.
I’ll just repeat, what did you want the police to do instead, one grab one arm, another grab another arm, and start tussling and see how far they could get? Should all 4 officer take off their guns, hand them to the sergeants for safe keeping, then start all start-wrestling? Do you really think that approach would have been better? In retrospect it may have been in this case, as the guy was so compromised by his health the cops wouldn’t have gotten hurt and he might have collapsed and died without any “chokehold” and there might have been less controversy, but in the typical situation I think it would be more likely that the two cops wrestling this 400 lb man with little success would have turned into clubbing him with a baton. Of course that is speculation, but if you want to get into “what ifs” you need to consider the bad outcomes and not just the wishful.
As far as the incident you describe, first of all, to believe one person’s story (or several people’s story if they all had something to gain, again like Ferguson) of an incident on their word alone it like thinking Michael brown was shot in the back with his hands up, I don’t know if it really happened that way. If a person is not being arrested him/herself then I don’t think cameras or cell phones should be taken, unless the person refuses to move a required distance.
My wife was most aghast at the fact that no one seemed to come to his aid, as Sammy has referred to. I doubt it was because no one cared if he was OK or not, but that none of them could conceive that what they just did could have seriously hurt him. So, unless one postulates that the police as a team in cold blood killed him, knew they killed him, and pretended they didn’t know,
the apparent explanation is that they did nothing that they considered especially rough or dangerous and had no idea that he was near death.
In trying to guess why EMS reacted the way they did, I’m guessing they took their cues from the police, who were not aware there was a serious problem. That’s not justifying it, just trying to understand. I assume if he had said, “My heart, my heart” and then collapsed, perhaps they would have been clued in that there was a medical emergency, as they would have thought, “Yeah, I guess a guy like this could have heart trouble”. As it was, they were probably thinking, “What is this ‘I can’t breathe’ nonsense? I hardly had any pressure on your neck to begin with and I stopped that long ago”.
I am sure many have heard this analogy before and could explain it better than I, but there is the “Swiss cheese” concept of disasters, that a number of small errors need to all align as holes in the Swiss cheese for a disaster to take place. I think that is the best way to understand this sad and tragic incident. It was not an example of outrageous police behavior, it was police behavior that would have left other 400 pound males hand-cuffed with little other injury.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/5/2014 @ 9:09 amIt would be interesting to know if any of the officers had been involved in any of his prior 30 arrests, if he had ever resisted before and if so what had happened in those incidents.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/5/2014 @ 9:09 am
But it wasn’t his heart, although his death was later attributed to aheart attack.
That would be the case for Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo.
More from that Daily news Op-ed describing the second video:
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/5/2014 @ 9:38 amOr maybe this would not have happened if police departments had reasonable height, weight, and physical fitness requirements? Saying something like those of firemen? Sometimes you need a small blow with a big hammer, and a lot of big blows with little hammers will just damage the part you’re trying to fix? Would Pantaleo have needed to hang his 135(?) lbs from Garner’s trachea if he, himself, was six feet tall and 190 lbs? Would Wilson have needed to shoot Michael Brown if he was the same size as Michael Brown? There was a time when harness bulls were over six feet tall and 200 lbs with size 14 flat feet. But that was also a time when New York City did not resell confiscated untaxed cigarettes as a source of revenue.
nk (dbc370) — 12/5/2014 @ 10:00 amJack Dunphy – Officers Did Not Use Excessive Force in Arresting Garner
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/394052/officers-did-not-use-excessive-force-arresting-garner-jack-dunphy
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/5/2014 @ 10:17 amDoc, in my experience watching a very competent deputy sheriff deal with situations akin to the this one, the victim’s statement would have been listened to and a response along the lines of “why are you making such a big deal out this? Is there something going on that we don’t know about?” The idea being to get the guy talking, and to show that you are concerned about where this whole thing is trending. I have no skills in thinking on my feet in this way, an even now I could not predict what my friend would do in this situation, but I know he would have defused the situation. And in agreement with nk’s comments on physical size and fitness requirements, my friend is in his 60’s, super fit, and over 6′. That helps insert a degree of reality into a crazy situation. And it gives the officer the option of waiting to see what might happen. He doesn’t have to land the first blow.
bobathome (5d64cd) — 12/5/2014 @ 10:26 amhttp://symptomchecker.isabelhealthcare.com/private/suggest_diagnosis.jsp
I put down a adult 40-49, male, North America and the symptom: can’t breathe:
Three of the top ten diagnosis are labeled common:
Vitamin B12 deficiency
Asthma
Concussion.
Guillain-Barré Syndrome
Nerve
Vitamin B12 Deficiency
Diet
Substance Abuse
Tox
Asthma
Lung
Otosclerosis
Ear
Pulmonary Edema
Lung
Pick’s Disease
Nerve
Vascular Dementia
Nerve
Concussion
Nerve
Lung Abscess
Infec
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/5/2014 @ 10:27 amOur Windy City barrister asked:
Mr Gardner was 6’3″ tall and 350 lb; Michael Brown was 6’4″ tall and weighed 292 lb. For Mr Gardner, that put him in the 97.8th percentile on height, while Mr Brown was at the 98.4th percentile. Source.
The sarcastic Dana (f6a568) — 12/5/2014 @ 10:31 amFor an American male in the 35 to 44 year age range, just being 6’0″ tall puts you in the 81.2nd percentile.
The 6'2" tall Dana (f6a568) — 12/5/2014 @ 10:34 amI copied the whole list of 10, but it didn’t come out good and then posted this without remembering to delete it, because it waa below the bottom of the screen.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/5/2014 @ 10:35 am264. That’s true, being very tall is a health risk.
The tallest men in the world have often died very young.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wadlow
He died at the age of 22, still growing, at 8 ft 11.1 in tall, although maybe that was not strictly related to his height.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/5/2014 @ 10:39 amPantaleo seems strong and fit, plus police work isn’t all about brawn. Officers also need to be able to chase suspects who try to flee. I imagine officers like Pantaleo have an advantage over their larger peers in those situations.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/5/2014 @ 10:40 amThat’s OK, Sammy. These things happen. They happen to some more than others–but they happen.
elissa (587353) — 12/5/2014 @ 10:40 amSo what’s the problem, Dana? 100 minus 98.4 is 1.6. Do we need more than 1.6% of the American male population to be street cops?
nk (dbc370) — 12/5/2014 @ 10:47 amfor Simon Jester, who’s prayers have been answered.
redc1c4 (2b3c9e) — 12/5/2014 @ 10:54 amIf they are being conscripted, no; in a free society, yeah.
Ad, of course, just because someone is 6 feet tall doesn’t mean he’s not dishonest or klutzy or clueless.
The Dana pointing out the obvious (f6a568) — 12/5/2014 @ 10:55 amSomeone too tall, also would tend to fall down, or not be that able to support himself, because of the square-cube law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square-cube_law
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/5/2014 @ 11:13 amNahhh, we just grow bigger feet!
The Dana wearing size 12 work boots (f6a568) — 12/5/2014 @ 11:20 amSo, rather than being hauled down with a disputed choke hold, Mr Gardner should have just fallen down by himself?
The snarky Dana (f6a568) — 12/5/2014 @ 11:21 amdaleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/5/2014 @ 10:17 am
Thanks for that, I was interested in what he thought. Thanks to Mr. Dunphy.
It is also interesting that he says the main issue for further litigation is the failure to recognize the risk of positional asphyxiation and not help him to a sitting position after subdued.
I realize people wish that this had not happened and that there is some solution to prevent it again. The simplest solution is for people not to resist arrest, not to change the physical qualifications to be a police officer, not to assume you can train police officers to always talk everyone into being reasonable.
I guess one thing you could do is develop a drug that makes people cooperative, has no side effects, one size dose fits all, and can be painlessly delivered by a dart gun instead of a Tazer.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/5/2014 @ 11:28 amBut I guess that would also be the perfect date rape drug, so nix that idea,
“The simplest solution is for people not to resist arrest, not to change the physical qualifications to be a police officer, not to assume you can train police officers to always talk everyone into being reasonable.”
MD in Philly – You know, that’s a solution that might have worked in Ferguson. I wonder why nobody thought of it instead of fabricating stories about what happened or assuming it was all about racism.
Another headscratcher.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/5/2014 @ 11:38 am274. It’s the cross-section area of the leg.
Of courae you don’t need to be 6 feet tall to have a problem if a muscle tore, or maybe it’s a ligament or a tendon or ther’s bursitis or whatever it is.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/5/2014 @ 11:44 amOver at PowerLine (Maybe I mentioned this before) they had a review of the testimony of “Witness #34”, an African American-man who had been arrested on several occasion and had no fondness of police who opined that it was crazy to fight the police, “Just talk to them” he said.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/5/2014 @ 11:46 amSounds like Sir Charles, and that African-American Pastor from Cali we saw on YouTube a while ago.
The otehr New York incident is of a cop patrolling the stairs of a housing project.
For teh second or third time in 20 years an innocent person got killed.
The cop was a rookie, who had not yet completed probation.
They woulkd go to the top floor and walk down. This was done because shootings happened or drug deals, It was considered a very dangerous place.
Police instruction leave it up to the discretion of the officer as to wther or not to have his gun out.
He had unholstered his gun.
As he opened a door he heard a noise.
It was completely dark inside because they ahd not replaced the lightbulbs in who knows how long.
Someone, with his girlfrend was going down the steps because the elevator was taking too long
Bang! The gun went off.
It wasn’t aimed at anyone. It richocheted into the man.
he was wounded, and ran down two flights, but died.
The two cops reported an accidental discharge.
The cop is reported to have told his family he was scared.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/5/2014 @ 11:51 amMD in Philly – Or the black Sheriff of Milwaukee County.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/5/2014 @ 11:52 amOh yeah, I saw a clip of him with Kelly.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/5/2014 @ 11:56 amI had read of him before actually, in reference to the witch-hunt of Gov. Walker. Even though he is a Dem, he was none too happy about some of the goings-on, as I recall.
Bobathome at 255… I knew what you meant, you had referenced midnight basketball earlier.
NK at 259… They have to employ the little guys. FYI some police history. Back in 1971 there was consent decree against the LAPD where they held that the LAPD standards for cops regarding height and weight were discriminatory and had to be changed. I’m not sure but I think it also addressed criminal history as well. One other thing they eliminated was the bonus points on the entry oral exam for veterans.
Watch the video again, he never got to a position to choke him and what he did have only lasted 13 to 14 seconds.
labcatcher (61737c) — 12/5/2014 @ 12:29 pmDaleyrocks at 260… The commenters are giving Jack grief, they don’t want to go with anything but how the video looks.
labcatcher (61737c) — 12/5/2014 @ 12:49 pmDaleyrocks and MD, that sheriff is going to get a lot grief for being so blunt and common sensical.
labcatcher (61737c) — 12/5/2014 @ 12:52 pmI thought Jack’s input would be helpful, as by the original post it seemed our host is inclined to think there was malicious behavior by the police, and he respects Jack’s opinion.
It seems that more people are interested in proclaiming what they think reality should be instead of recognizing it for what it is. If there was a way to let all of the police critics be sent out to do the job themselves for a day maybe they would get some perspective. Then again, maybe not.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/5/2014 @ 1:03 pmI think the sheriff is sort of used to it by now, a bit of a healthy Sir Charles attitude, “I am who I am and I’m not about to change for you, no matter who you are.”
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/5/2014 @ 1:05 pmNK at 259… They have to employ the little guys. FYI some police history.
labcatcher (61737c) — 12/5/2014 @ 12:29 pm
I know all that, labcatcher, and I am very opposed to it. Lieutenant Columbo notwithstanding, physical size, strength and fitness are extremely job-related to police work, in my opinion. So is a more mature age and general world experience. The preferred age for Chicago cops in the ’70s and earlier was at just under 35. Much more job-related than gender diversity, equal opportunity and non-disparate impact on wise Latinas. I am kind of thankful for Michelle Obama’s “obesity epidemic” when I see these 5’2″ lady Puerto Rican cops in Chicago, because without that extra poundage they couldn’t even take down a 12-year old.
nk (dbc370) — 12/5/2014 @ 2:36 pmpreferred *recruitment* age
nk (dbc370) — 12/5/2014 @ 2:38 pmFresh from their last facepalm:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-police-in-america-are-becoming-illegitimate-20141205?page=2
narciso (ee1f88) — 12/5/2014 @ 2:42 pmnarciso and JD read things so the rest of us don’t have to…
The problem is, people believe that stuff.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/5/2014 @ 3:37 pmIn a conversation “over the holidays that ventured into healthcare”, an otherwise smart family member thought that if you showed up in an ER in the US with a severe headache without insurance they could and would refuse to see you.