awesome post, except one small thing, the type of "choke hold" the officer used wasnt prohibited, as it was not the type that restricts oxygen but rather blood flow.

and to add, it. in 2013 mayor nanny bloomberg implement new penelties for selling untaxed cigerettes, and the nypd police chief ordered police to crack down on these illegal cigerettes. so encroaching government and stupid laws are largely to blame

I thought i already posted this, but i cant seem to find it, so ill post it again since many people are seemingly ignoring facts i (thought I) already posted.

On Wednesday, a New York grand jury refused to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of 43-year-old Eric Garner. Pantaleo is white; Garner is black. That one fact meant that the President of the United States and the Mayor of New York City took to the microphones to denounce American racism. President Obama talked about the “concern on the part of too many minority communities that law enforcement is not working with them and dealing with them in a fair way.” De Blasio went further, of course, calling for “action” and suggesting that the incident represented the culmination of “centuries of racism.”

Unlike the Michael Brown killing in Ferguson, Missouri, there is excellent cause for concern here. But that concern does not mean that facts of the case ought to become irrelevant.

The Case. The incident was caught on tape by a friend of Garner’s, and shows Garner, who weighed some 400 lbs., being confronted by police over distributing unlicensed cigarettes (colloquially called “loosies”). The video shows Garner resisting arrest, although not violently so – he shouts at officers, “Every time you see me you want to arrest me, I’m tired of this, this stops today…I didn’t do nothing…I’m minding my business, officer…” while waving his arms animatedly -- before Pantaleo comes up behind him and places his left arm around Garner’s neck, bringing his right arm up below Garner’s right arm. Garner raises his hands, falling backwards, at which point three other officers physically grab Garner. He falls to the ground, Pantaleo hanging onto his back with his arm still around Garner’s neck. The officers tell Garner to put his hands behind his head, and Garner complains that he cannot breathe. Pantaleo forces Garner’s head to the cement. It is clear that witnesses do not believe Garner has been put in mortal danger.

Garner died a few minutes later.

The autopsy from the medical examiner attributed his death to homicide – meaning death at the hands of another party, not murder, in medical parlance – and stated that he died thanks to “Compression of neck (choke hold), compression of chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police.” But the autopsy further noted that Garner died thanks to acute and chronic bronchial asthma, obesity, and heart disease.

The Charges. First off, it is vital to note that nobody knows exactly the charges filed with the grand jury against Pantaleo. According to ABC News, the charges could have included “second-degree manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, felony assault, reckless endangerment.” The charges matter, since each individual charge carries with it requirements for different elements. As Professor Eugene O’Donnell of the John Jay Criminal College of Criminal Justice wrote in The New York Daily News:

As a practical matter — on the basis of past cases — the grand jury would likely indict only if it found malice or some intention to hurt Mr. Garner or that a gross disregard for Mr. Garner’s well-being is what created the tragic ending during this routine arrest. Finding that the officer was careless or that the arrest was bungled will not rise to the level of a crime.

The Arrest. It is vital to separate out the actions of the police from the rationale for their action. That’s because by virtually any logic, it is the height of irresponsibility and depravity for a man to end up dead for selling loose cigarettes. The law that led to this confrontation was pressed forward by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Garner had been arrested some eight times for selling “loosies.” As Lawrence McQuillanreported in The Washington Times:

In January 2014, tough new penalties for selling untaxed cigarettes took effect inNew York City. In July, emboldened by the new law, the city’s highest-ranking uniformed cop, Philip Banks, issued an order to crack down on loosie sales days before Garner died.

So in terms of police cracking down on Garner, the real responsibility lies with Bloomberg and NYPD Chief Bill Bratton. Idiot laws lead to meaningless deaths.

The “Chokehold.” At issue in this case is the so-called “chokehold” used by Pantaleo. Chokeholds have been banned by the NYPD entirely since 1993; chokeholds are typically defined as holds that prevent people from breathing. Thanks to the video showing Garner stating that he cannot breathe, many pundits have wrongly suggested that Pantaleo was “choking” Garner by depriving him of air from his windpipe. Bratton himself suggested that Pantaleo used a “chokehold,” which is defined by the NYPD as “any pressure to the throat or windpipe, which may prevent or hinder breathing or reduce intake of air.”

That does not appear to have been the case. Garner did not die of asphyxiation, as the head of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association noted at the time. The preliminary autopsy showed no damage to Garner’s windpipe or neck bones.

So what was Pantaleo doing? He was applying a submission hold, which is not barred by the NYPD, and is designed to deprive the brain of oxygen by stopping blood flow through the arteries. So say the experts on submission holds.

It appears that the so-called chokehold was instrumental in triggering Garner’s pre-existing health problems and causing his death, but Garner was not choked to death, as the media seems to maintain. According to Garner’s friends, he “had several health issues: diabetes, sleep apnea, and asthma so severe that he had to quit his job as a horticulturist for the city’s parks department. He wheezed when he talked and could not walk a block without resting, they said.”

Excessive Force. There is no clear and concise guideline available on excessive force. According to Mark Henriquez, project manager for the National Police Use of Force Database Project at the International Association of Chiefs of Police, only .44 percent of all force complaints were considered excessive from 1994-1998.

So, in deciding whether a grand jury should have indicted Garner, we should assess the following questions:

1. Was there any intent by the officers to kill Garner? That would certainly be an uphill case to make, as the grand jury likely found.
2. Did the “chokehold” kill Garner, or did his pre-existing health conditions kill him? If Garner had otherwise been healthy, would he have died from use of the “chokehold”?
3. If not, would use of the “chokehold” have been reckless?
4. Was the use of the “chokehold” reasonable use of force rather than excessive use of force? Was the “chokehold” necessary to subdue him?

Unfortunately, in situations like the Garner case, our gut tends to overwhelm our assessment of the facts. We are sickened, as we should be, by the idea that a man died over sale of loose cigarettes – which is an indictment of the law, rather than of the police. We are sickened by the fact that a man died while warning officers he could not breathe – but we must assess whether that death was caused by the officers, or intervening medical conditions.

When people’s lives are at stake, it is worthwhile to actually examine those facts, rather than pre-conceived narratives constructed for political gain. And it is worthwhile noting that even if the police did use excessive force against Garner – which, of course, is quite possible – that still does not establish that they did so for racial reasons. 

Well, I think the lesson here is that cigarettes are bad for your health.

What's particularly sad about this case is that, regardless of whether the officer was technically allowed to do this, or whether he had intention of killing, we have a situation where 8 men ganged up and assaulted a man who, from the looks of things, was just trying to earn a buck.

I say sad, but it's not shocking. People are fooled into thinking that the police are there to "protect and serve". They're really not, they exist to enforce policy, that's where the name "police" comes from. And as long as an individual officer sticks to his job of enforcing policies (like making sure somebody doesn't try to sell individual cigarettes), the state will typically grant them personal immunity from many laws (within the tolerance of the populace).

It's a sell-your-soul type deal, screw over your fellow man for daddy-state, and they'll give you special privileges.

It's like here in Hong Kong, some friends were genuinely crying over the HK police crack down of the protests, couldn't believe that police here would do such things. Don't be a fucking fool, that's their job, to enforce policy, and the policy is always to maintain and grow the state.

I believe the media is race baiting and antagonizing everyone for the sake of ratings. I'm sure there's a lot more serious things going on that affect a lot more people. I'm sure plenty of people that only care about this stuff to save face in front of everyone.

Personally, I'm fresh out of sympathy for "cops are being mean to us" cause. Why? Because by just being polite and compliant with cops, goes a long way with them not even giving you a ticket, arresting you or even taking up too much of your time. It always ends peacefully. This is what a wise person would do with cops. I get out of a lot of tickets and trouble by just doing that.

http://instagram.com/p/wM7Z-Juc22/?modal=true

Yay, police. What a better time to do a "submission hold" then during protests about the Garner incident. A handcuffed person no less.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/03/eric-garner-family_n_6265792.html

"Garner, a Staten Island man who had asthma, died on July 17 after Officer Daniel Pantaleo placed him in a prohibited police chokehold during an arrest"

http://rt.com/usa/211203-garner-chokehold-grand-jury-decision/

The city’s medical examiner ruled Garner died as a result of the chokehold – a move which is banned by the NYPD – and declared his death a homicide

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/12/03/3598919/breaking-grand-jury-wont-charge-cop-who-killed-eric-garner-with-illegal-chokehold/

A grand jury voted not to file any charges against David Pantaleo, the New York Police Department cop who took the life of Eric Garner after putting him in a chokehold — a maneuver banned by the police department.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/nyregion/grand-jury-said-to-bring-no-charges-in-staten-island-chokehold-death-of-eric-garner.html?_r=0

An autopsy by the city’s medical examiner found that Mr. Garner’s death was a homicide resulting from the chokehold — a maneuver banned by the Police Department in 1993 — and the compression of his chest by police officers.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nypd-eric-garner-chokehold-death-not-indicted-article-1.2031841

Garner, a 43-year-old father of six, was killed when Pantaleo subdued him with a banned chokehold.

 Shall I keep going?

This debate won't be able to proceed until we can get the whole: " there was never a chokehold" narrative out of the way.

"Lawrence Kobilinsky, a forensic scientist and professor at New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice, says that the chokehold he saw in the Garner video had the potential to be deadly. It seemingly cuts off the airway, which can lead to a condition called asphyxia -- which includes unconsciousness and suffocation, by cutting off one's oxygen supply -- "and ultimately cardiac arrest and death."

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/12/04/us/eric-garner-chokehold-debate/

And did you conveniently ignore this fact.

"In order for a "lateral vascular neck restraint" shouldn't it require the crook of the elbow be positioned over the mid of the neck (to prevent it becoming an air choke)? In this case, if you look at the videos, the crook of his elbow was definitely positioned to the side of the neck and his wrist was placed firmly where the throat is." Ergo (the banned) air choke hold.

Also, where did you read that a lateral vascular (blood choke hold) restraint was allowed by the NYPD anyway? I can't find that anywhere where it's mentioned to be an allowed method in restraining suspects. All I'm seeing is that choke holds in general are not allowed.

There are literally other fronts that actually have legit debating points but this forced false narrative has got to go.