Thread: Blame only the man who tragically decided to resist

Blame only the man who tragically decided to resist

By Bob McManus
December 4, 2014 | 12:03am

Eric Garner suffered a heart attack during his arrest by the NYPD and died soon after.Photo: AP (left)

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Eric Garner and Michael Brown had much in common, not the least of which was this: On the last day of their lives, they made bad decisions. Epically bad decisions.

Each broke the law — petty offenses, to be sure, but sufficient to attract the attention of the police.
And then — tragically, stupidly, fatally, inexplicably — each fought the law.

The law won, of course, as it almost always does.

This was underscored yet again Wednesday when a Staten Island grand jury chose not to indict any of the arresting officers in the death in police custody of Garner last July.

Just as a grand jury last week declined to indict the police officer who shot a violently resisting Michael Brown to death in Ferguson, Mo., in August.

Demagoguery rises to an art form in such cases — because, again, the police generally win. (Though not always, as a moment’s reflection before the Police Memorial in lower Manhattan will underscore.) And because those who advocate for cop-fighters are so often such accomplished beguilers.

They cast these tragedies as, if not outright murder, then invincible evidence of an enduringly racist society.

No such thing, as a matter of fact. Virtually always, these cases represent sad, low-impact collisions of cops and criminals — routine in every respect except for an outlier conclusion.

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The Garner case is textbook.

Eric Garner was a career petty criminal who’d experienced dozens of arrests, but had learned nothing from them. He was on the street July 17, selling untaxed cigarettes one at a time — which, as inconsequential as it seems, happens to be a crime.

Yet another arrest was under way when, suddenly, Garner balked. “This ends here,” he shouted — as it turned out, tragically prophetic words — as he began struggling with the arresting officer.

Again, this was a bad decision. Garner suffered from a range of medical ailments — advanced diabetes, plus heart disease and asthma so severe that either malady might have killed him, it was said at the time.

Still, he fought — and at one point during the struggle, a cop wrapped his arm around Garner’s neck.

That image was captured on bystander video and later presented as irrefutable evidence of an “illegal” chokehold and, therefore, grounds for a criminal indictment against the cop.

That charge fails, and here’s why.

First, while “chokeholds” are banned by NYPD regulation, they’re not illegal under state law when used by a cop during a lawful arrest. So much for criminal charges, given that nobody seriously disputes the legitimacy of the arrest.

Second, and this speaks to the ubiquitous allegation that cops are treated “differently” than ordinary citizens in deadly-force cases: Indeed they are — and it is the law itself that confers the privilege.

The law gives cops the benefit of every reasonable doubt in the good-faith performance of their duties — and who would really have it any other way?

Cops who need to worry about whether the slightest mishap — a minor misunderstanding that escalates to violence of any sort — might result in criminal charges and a prison term are not cops who are going to put the public’s interests first.

Finally, there is this: There were 228,000 misdemeanor arrests in New York City in 2013, the last year for which there are audited figures, and every one of them had at least the potential to turn into an Eric Garner-like case.

None did.

So much for the “out of control” cop trope. So much for the notion that everyday citizens — or even criminals with the presence of mind to keep their hands to themselves — have something to fear from the NYPD.

Keep this in mind as the rhetoric fogs the facts in the hours and days ahead.

For there are many New Yorkers — politicians, activists, trial lawyers, all the usual suspects — who will now seek to profit from a tragedy that wouldn’t have happened had Eric Garner made a different decision.

He was a victim of himself. It’s just that simple.

http://nypost.com/2014/12/04/eric-ga...ing-to-resist/

Police: Chokehold Victim Eric Garner Complicit In Own Death

| By TOM HAYS & COLLEEN LONG
Posted: 12/05/2014 3:21 pm EST Updated: 1 hour ago

NEW YORK (AP) — Eric Garner was overweight and in poor health. He was a nuisance to shop owners who complained about him selling untaxed cigarettes on the street. When police came to arrest him, he resisted. And if he could repeatedly say, "I can't breathe," it means he could breathe.

Rank-and-file New York City police officers and their supporters have been making such arguments even before a grand jury decided against charges in Garner's death, saying the possibility that he contributed to his own demise has been drowned out in the furor over race and law enforcement.

Officers say the outcry has left them feeling betrayed and demonized by everyone from the president and the mayor to throngs of protesters who scream at them on the street.

"Police officers feel like they are being thrown under the bus," said Patrick Lynch, president of the police union.

The grand jury this week cleared a white patrolman, Daniel Pantaleo, who was caught on video applying what appeared to be an illegal chokehold on the black man. Mayor Bill de Blasio said the case underscores the NYPD's need to improve relations with minorities.

But Lynch said: "What we did not hear is this: You cannot go out and break the law. What we did not hear is that you cannot resist arrest.

That's a crime."

At the noisy demonstrations that have broken out over the past few days, protesters have confronted police who had nothing to do with the case. Signs read: "NYPD: Blood on your hands," ''Racism kills" and "Hey officers, choke me or shoot me." Some demonstrators shouted, "NYPD pigs!" More than 280 people have been arrested, and more demonstrations were planned Friday.

In private and on Internet chat rooms, officers say they feel demoralized, misunderstood and "all alone."

Some are advising each other that the best way to preserve their careers is to stop making arrests like that of Garner's, in defiance of the NYPD's campaign of cracking down on minor "quality of life" offenses as a way to discourage serious crime.

"Everyone is just demonizing the police," said Maki Haberfeld, a professor of police studies at John Jay College of criminal justice.

"But police follow orders and laws. Nobody talks about the responsibility of the politicians to explain to the community why quality-of-life enforcement is necessary."

The fatal encounter occurred in July after Pantaleo and other police officers responded to complaints about Garner, a heavyset 43-year-old father of six.

The video showed Garner telling officers to leave him alone and refusing to be handcuffed. Pantaleo, an eight-year veteran, appeared to wrap his arm around Garner's neck and take him down to the ground with the help of other officers.

Garner could be heard saying, "I can't breathe," several times before he went motionless.

The medical examiner later found that a chokehold resulted in Garner's death, but also that asthma, obesity and cardiovascular disease were contributing factors.

As the video sparked accusations of excessive force, the police unions mounted a counter-narrative: that Garner would still be alive if he had obeyed orders, that his poor health was the main cause of his death and that Pantaleo had used an authorized takedown move — more like a headlock than a chokehold — to subdue him.

While the grand jury proceedings were secret, Pantaleo's lawyer has said that the officer testified that he never tried to choke Garner and did not believe the man was in mortal danger.

Pantaleo's defenders have included Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who argued that the grand jury outcome would have been the same if Garner had been white, and that police were right to ignore his pleas that he couldn't breathe.

"The fact that he was able to say it meant he could breathe," said King, the son of a police officer.

"And if you've ever seen anyone locked up, anyone resisting arrest, they're always saying, 'You're breaking my arm, you're killing me, you're breaking my neck.' So if the cops had eased up or let him go at that stage, the whole struggle would have started in again."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/1...n_6277790.html

Eric Garner: Chokehold his own doing, or 'death by economic regulation'?


Eric Garner’s enough-is-enough stand when police stopped him for illegally selling cigarettes points to political and economic policies that seem to protect the powerful at the expense of the marginalized.

By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer DECEMBER 6, 2014

• John Minchillo/AP
  View Caption

ATLANTA — Protesters have clung to Eric Garner’s last words – “I can’t breathe” – as they demonstrate against what they see as unequal application of justice after a grand jury this week refused to hand down homicide charges against NYPD Officer Dan Pantaleo, whose chokehold killed Garner.

But to understand protests and calls for reform, some commentators are drawing notice to what else Mr. Garner, growing miffed, said after police focused on him after he helped to break up a fight: “It stops today.”

To be sure, Garner’s resistance to being arrested by six police officers for allegedly, and not for the first time, selling untaxed single cigarettes has been seen by many as his fatal and underlying mistake.

Recommended: 'Stop and frisk': 7 questions about New York's controversial policing tactic

Accordingly, a 12-member grand jury this week cleared Mr. Pantaleo, who is white, after he was caught on video applying what appeared to be a department-banned chokehold on Garner, who is black. The case is under federal review.


'Stop and frisk': 7 questions about New York's controversial policing tactic



PHOTOS OF THE DAY Photos of the day 12/05


“What we did not hear [in anti-police protests] is this: You cannot go out and break the law,” NYPD union chief Patrick Lynch said Friday, suggesting that Garner was responsible for his own death. “What we did not hear is that you cannot resist arrest. That's a crime.”

But in New York, the heart of global capitalism, as well as in tiny Ferguson, Mo., where an unarmed Michael Brown was killed after resisting an officer's demand to get on the sidewalk, Garner’s enough-is-enough stand also points to the results of political and even economic policies that seem, critics argue, to protect the powerful at the expense of the marginalized.

Indeed, the roots of anger expressed in major urban areas over the police-caused deaths of Garner and Brown, and a litany of other similar cases from Ohio to Phoenix, is in large part about how populist and well-intentioned tactics and laws can, over time, wear the shine off the American promise, and, at its very extreme, cause what Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi calls “death by economic regulation.”

“You can't send hundreds of thousands of people to court every year on broken-taillight-type misdemeanors and expect people to sit still while yet another coroner-declared homicide goes unindicted,” writes Mr. Taibbi, who lives in New York. “It just won't hold. If the law isn't the same everywhere, it's not legitimate. And in these neighborhoods, what we have doesn't come close to looking like one single set of laws anymore.”

Such disparities aren’t borne just of economic circumstance and race, but of long-term unintended consequences of well-intentioned laws.
After all, if “broken windows” policing helps rid neighborhoods of hardened criminals, the political argument goes, that should be especially a benefit to those who live there.

But if the strategy also results in constant harassment and penny-ante citations for crimes like smoking in the wrong place, riding a bike the wrong way on a sidewalk, or “obstructing traffic” when there’s no traffic to obstruct, then frustrations can grow. That’s especially true, Mr. Taibbi writes, in places like New York, where “[a] ferry ride away from Staten Island, on Wall Street, the pure unmolested freedom to fleece whoever you want is considered the sacred birthright of every rake with a briefcase.”

Politicians take their cues from what people want and demand, and “broken windows” type policing has wide support among New Yorkers. Yet policy-makers, some argue, have a special responsibility to make sure new laws – including higher penalties for selling untaxed “loosies,” passed last year by a New York State legislature that also imposes some of the highest tobacco taxes in the US – don’t create perverse incentives that can lead to tragedy.

“It's unlikely that the New York legislature, in creating the crime of selling untaxed cigarettes, imagined that anyone would die for violating it,” writes Stephen Carter, a Yale University law professor, in the Chicago Tribune. “But fewer laws would mean fewer opportunities for official violence to get out of hand.”

Demonstrators aren’t the only ones questioning the impact of focusing on minor offenses in so-called crime “hot zones.” In the wake of Garner’s death and protests on his behalf, some police officers are privately discussing whether to stop heeding the city’s campaign to target minor “quality of life” offenses.

"Everyone is just demonizing the police," Maki Haberfeld, a professor of police studies at John Jay College of criminal justice, told the Associated Press. "But police follow orders and laws. Nobody talks about the responsibility of the politicians to explain to the community why quality-of-life enforcement is necessary."

The police killings in communities where tensions between residents and police run high comes at a time of increased scholarly interest in how justice gets twisted.

Alice Goffman’s “On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City” confronts how easily especially poorer Americans can become ensnared in a “web of warrants." And Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow” has been described as “a devastating account of a legal system doing its job perfectly well.”

“Racial antagonism between residents and law enforcement is bad no matter what, but it’s worse when residents wind up interacting constantly with law enforcement because of a culture of petty fines,” writes Walter Olson of the non-partisan, pro-markets Cato Institute think tank.

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• Amid anger over Eric Garner, a unique moment for change in NYPD (+video)
• Why conservatives and liberals are united on Eric Garner case (+video)
  
  
  
• http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice...mic-regulation

http://www.alipac.us/f19/david-clark...racist-315886/

New York to pay Eric Garner's family $5.9 million

Ahead of the one year anniversary of Eric Garner's death at the hands NYPD officers, his family has reached a large settlement with the city.

By Colleen Long, Associated Press JULY 13, 2015

• Eric Garner's family prepares to mark first anniversary of his NYPD chokehold death
  WPIX - New York
  
  
  

NEW YORK — New York City reached a settlement Monday with the family of Eric Garner for $5.9 million, almost a year after the 43-year-old died in police custody.

The family filed a notice of claim in October, the first step in filing a lawsuit against the city, asking for $75 million. Garner was stopped on July 17 outside a convenience store for selling loose, untaxed cigarettes. A video shot by an onlooker shows Garner telling the officers to leave him alone and refusing to be handcuffed. Garner is taken to the ground in what appears to be a chokehold, banned by police policy. The officer, Daniel Pantaleo, says it was a legal takedown maneuver.

Garner, who had asthma, is heard gasping, "I can't breathe!" 11 times before he loses consciousness. He was pronounced dead later at a hospital.


Recommended: Can you pass the written police officer exam?

The city medical examiner found that the police chokehold contributed to Garner's death. But a grand jury on Staten Island declined to indict the officer in the death. A federal probe is ongoing.


TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE Can you pass the written police officer exam?



PHOTOS OF THE DAY Photos of the day 07/13


While the city has a legal department that fields lawsuits, the New York City comptroller's office also can settle claims.

Comptroller Scott Stringer has made a point of doing that in civil rights cases, saying that resolving them quickly saves the city money on legal fees.

"Following a judicious review of the claim and facts of this case, my office was able to reach a settlement with the estate of Eric Garner that is in the best interests of all parties," Stringer said in a statement announcing the settlement.

The attorney for Garner's family did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Last month, the comptroller's office agreed to pay $6.25 million to a man who spent nearly 25 years in prison before being exonerated in a killing that happened while he was more than 1,000 miles away vacationing at Disney World. A $6.4 million settlement was reached with a man exonerated in the 1990 killing of a rabbi. Stringer also agreed to a $2.25 million payout to the family of a mentally ill inmate who died in a Rikers Island jail cell that sweltered to 101 degrees because of a malfunctioning heating system, and helped put together a $17 million settlement in the case of three half-brothers who spent a combined 60 years in prison before their convictions were thrown out.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2015/07...ly-5.9-million