In background, from the NYDailyNews.com:
NYPD officer in Eric Garner chokehold death not indicted by Staten Island grand jury
by Tina Moore, Thomas Tracy, Rocco Parascandola, Corky Siemaszko
Eric Garner’s widow reacted with shock and dismay Wednesday after a Staten Island grand jury chose not to indict the NYPD officer who killed her husband with a chokehold.
“Oh my God, are you serious?” Esaw Garner, her voice rising in shock and anger, told The Daily News. “I’m very disappointed. You can see in the video that he (the cop) was dead wrong!”
Garner was referring to the shocking cellphone video first published on NYDailyNews.com that showed Officer Daniel Pantaleo placing Garner in a chokehold — a move banned by the NYPD — and wrestling him to the ground.
Background: NYPD came into the neighborhood in order to identify and arrest persons selling black market cigarettes — called “loosies,” because they are sold individually by persons who don’t charge the ridiculous taxes that area businesses must charge. Therefore, the local businesses asked NYPD to come in and clean up the illegal activity. They said it was unfair that individuals were undercutting brick-and-mortar neighborhood businesses who were required to collect NY and state taxes on cigarettes.
In other words, the businesses were asking the NYPD to stop crimes from being committed in their area.
The NYPD showed up, and you can see what occurred in the video above. NYPD was tasked with making an arrest. When a man who is clearly much larger than any of the four officers in the scene resists, the officers react.
You are now one of those NYPD officers. What do you do when a man the size of Garner resists? Take race out of it. Do you let him push you aside? Do you call for even more officers? Do you draw even more attention to the resistance? Do you walk away? Do you just issue a citation and allow him to continue selling cigarettes in front of local businesses?
You are the cop. What do you do?
BZ
P.S.
Now information from the NY Post indicating:
Man in chokehold death had no throat damage: autopsy
The forbidden chokehold used by a cop to take down a Staten Island man in a deadly encounter Thursday did not damage his windpipe or neck bones, sources said.
The preliminary autopsy findings could be welcome news for Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo, now named as the cop who wrapped his arm around Eric Garner’s throat while trying to arrest him.
“If you’re the defense counsel in this case, this is very good news, because it’s consistent with what appears to be the case — that they didn’t mean to hurt him,” said John Jay College of Criminal Justice Professor Eugene O’Donnell.
But a source close to the Medical Examiner’s investigation said coroners are also investigating whether the chokehold still contributed to Garner’s death by aggravating his pre-existing conditions of obesity, asthma and possible heart disease. He died of cardiac arrest in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
Conflicts? Again, what would you do?
Probably off topic but I have read that what was used was not a ‘chokehold’ but was a submission hold (which then triggered the underlying asthma and cardiac problems which led to his death). Is this pertinent to this situation? If it was a legal submission hold how can the police be held liable for unknown medical issues?
As a civilian, all I can say is to lose your life over a package of cigarettes is hard to comprehend but as in Ferguson, Brown and Garner would be alive today had they not tried to challenge police. Garner said ‘This ends today’. Sadly he was right.
Not off topic; it was not a true carotid constriction as some departments will teach. Your suggestion is extremely pertinent. The NYPD does NOT issue Tasers to patrol officers are are only utilized in some occasional riot control situations. These officers did not have Tasers.
BZ