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  1. #1
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    N.Y. Grand jury declines to indict NYPD officer over chokehold death

    Eric Garner: grand jury declines to indict NYPD officer over chokehold death, lawyer says

    Lawyer ‘astonished’ as New York police officer will not face charges over death of Eric Garner in illegal chokehold that was caught on camera


    The family of Eric Garner address a New York rally. Photograph: DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty ImagesLauren Gambino

    Wednesday 3 December 2014 14.45 EST


    More than four months after an unarmed black man died in an illegal chokehold during an arrest by a New York police officer, the criminal case against the officers involved in his death has collapsed with a special grand jury decision not bring charges, according to an attorney for the victim’s family.

    The Associated Press quoted Jonathon Moore, who represents Eric Garner’s family, saying he was “astonished by the decision”.


    The decision comes after racial tensions reached fever pitch in Missouri, the scene of violence and rioting after a grand jury declined to bring charges against a white police office in the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager. His death sparked hundreds of protests across the country and snapped into focus seething race issues.


    Only 17 July, police stopped the heavy-set father of six on Staten Island under suspicion of peddling untaxed “loose” cigarettes. Garner had been arrested previously for selling untaxed cigarettes, marijuana possession and false impersonation.


    A video shot by an bystander shows Garner resisting arrest as a plainclothes officer attempts to to handcuff him. Backing away from the office, Garner tells him: “This stops today,” which has become a rallying cry for protesters in New York.


    A struggle ensues. Eight-year NYPD veteran Daniel Pantaleo responds by putting his arm around Garner’s neck in a chokehold, banned under police policy, and wrestling the asthmatic man to the ground with the aid of several officers. Garner gasps “I can’t breathe” until his 350-pound body goes limp. He was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

    Speaking at Garner’s funeral in July, Rev Al Sharpton urged a federal civil rights investigation, and argued for charges to be brought against the officer.


    “Let’s not play games with this one. You don’t need no training to stop choking a man saying ‘I can’t breathe’,” Sharpton shouted to a packed church. “You don’t need no cultural orientation to stop choking a man saying ‘I can’t breathe.’ You need to be prosecuted.”


    Garner’s death touched off protests and rallies across the city.

    Weeks later, the city’s medical examiner ruled Garner’s death a homicide, heightening calls for criminal charges. The autopsy findings said Garner died as a result of the chokehold, which caused him to suffer chest compressions during the arrest.


    Pantaleo was stripped of his gun and badge while an investigation takes place; the actions of the other officers and emergency responders involved in the incident were also examined.


    Tension had been simmering all week as New Yorkers braced for the verdict, delivered ahead of the anticipated grand jury decision on whether to bring charges against the officer who killed Michael Brown in Ferguson.


    Activists called for a day of action following the verdict to protest the decision not to pursue charges against Pantaleo. Protesters are also demanding an end to a policing philosophy championed by NYPD commissioner William Bratton. The policing model, known as broken windows, emphasizes attention to petty crime – such as selling untaxed cigarettes – as means of stymying large-scale crime.


    The decision may compound already frayed relations between the New York police department and minority communities, which Bratton and the city’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, pledged to repair.

    The NYPD outlawed chokeholds over two decades ago exactly because they can be deadly if administered inappropriately or carelessly. Still, between January 2009 and June 2014, the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board, an independent agency that investigates police misconduct, received 1,128 civilian complaints involving chokehold allegations. Of these, only a small fraction of the cases are ever substantiated, just ten over the five and a half year window. In the days after Garner’s death, Bratton said all 35,000 officers would be retrained on the department’s use of force policy.

    The family has sued the city, and the police department as well as several officers involved in the incident.


    http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/03/eric-garner-grand-jury-declines-indict-nypd-chokehold-death
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  2. #2
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Protesters rock N.Y. after grand jury decision

    A grand jury declined to indict in the case of a man who died after gasping "I can't breathe" while an NYPD officer had him in a chokehold. FULL STORY



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    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Protests after N.Y. cop not indicted in chokehold death; feds reviewing case

    By Ray Sanchez and Shimon Prokupecz, CNN
    updated 8:02 PM EST, Wed December 3, 2014

    STORY HIGHLIGHTS



    • NEW: AG Holder announces federal investigation
    • Protesters in New York City march, chant
    • Officer Daniel Pantaleo: "I feel very bad about the death of Mr. Garner"
    • He put Eric Garner in a chokehold in July; Garner died


    New York (CNN) -- A grand jury in New York on Wednesday decided not to indict white police Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the July chokehold death of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man.

    Federal officials subsequently announced they were moving ahead with a civil rights investigation.


    During the fatal encounter July 17 on Staten Island, Garner raised both hands in the air and told the officers not to touch him. Seconds later, a video shows an officer behind Garner grab him in a chokehold and pull him to the sidewalk, rolling him onto his stomach.


    "I can't breathe! I can't breathe!" Garner said repeatedly, his cries muffled into the pavement.

    Chokehold victim's family, friends protest
    Obama: We must strengthen trust

    NY police officer: We are all saddened

    Ben Crump: Hard now to defend the system

    Garner, 43, was pronounced dead that day. Police had suspected Garner of selling cigarettes illegally.

    The cause of Garner's death was "compression of neck (chokehold), compression of chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police," the medical examiner's office has said. The New York City Police Department prohibits chokeholds. The death was ruled a homicide.


    The grand jury was made up of 14 white and nine nonwhite members, according to law enforcement sources. A total of 12 jurors who have heard all the evidence must be in agreement for a decision. The grand jury found that there was no "reasonable cause" to indict.


    The case became emblematic of longstanding tensions between police and minority communities, especially given that the majority of people stopped under the former "stop-and-frisk" police policy were African-American or Hispanic.


    A federal court ruled that stop-and-frisk was unconstitutional and tantamount to racial profiling.


    The Garner death led to demonstrations around the city and came weeks before the racially charged police shooting of unarmed teen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.


    Wednesday night, hundreds of protesters poured onto the streets of New York, weaving around traffic from Union Square to Columbus Circle and mixing with hordes of people gathered for the annual Christmas tree lighting at Rockefeller Center.


    "Hand up. Don't shoot," some demonstrators shouted. Columbus Circle was blocked by protesters for a time.

    http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/03/justice/new-york-grand-jury-chokehold/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
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  4. #4
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    These things seem to always start out:

    A black guy broke some law,

    a cop came along . . .
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  5. #5
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    NO AMNESTY

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  6. #6
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Was a New York police officer's chokehold on Eric Garner necessary?

    By Greg Botelho, CNN
    updated 11:41 AM EST, Thu December 4, 2014
    Source: CNN

    STORY HIGHLIGHTS

    • Eric Garner died after being put in chokehold by a New York police officer
    • A grand jury decided not to indict the officer in Garner's death
    • Chokeholds are prohibited by N.Y. police, but not under N.Y. law
    • Experts say police officers sometimes have to use force to arrest suspects


    (CNN) -- An emphatic Eric Garner talks to police, gesturing with his arms to make his point. Eventually, police move in as Garner raises both hands in the air and tells them not to touch him. One officer reaches for Garner's hand; seconds later, another officer wraps his arm around Garner's neck.

    Cellphone video shot by a friend of Garner's shows the officer maintaining that hold as Garner is taken to the ground, crying out, "I can't breathe, I can't breathe, I can't breathe," over and over again.

    The words stop. And Garner never gets up.

    A grand jury has decided that there's no probable cause to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo, the man who put Garner in that chokehold on a Staten Island sidewalk, in the 43-year-old's death.


    Chokehold protesters swarm U.S. streets

    Spike Lee on Garner grand jury decision

    Garner Attorney: Decision defies belief

    But that judgment certainly doesn't end the debate about what Pantaleo did -- not just whether it was a criminal act, but whether it was necessary and in violation of the New York Police Department's own policies.

    In an interview in August with CNN's Chris Cuomo
    , New York Police Commissioner William Bratton said that no local laws criminalize chokeholds, though they are prohibited by his department. In fact, the NYPD could discipline Pantaleo or his fellow officers if an ongoing internal review finds their actions did not align with police department procedures.


    Yet Bratton has also cautioned against a rush to judgment.


    "I've been around a long time in this business," he noted, adding that "what it appears to be sometimes may not be what it is."


    Medical examiner noted chokehold, other factors

    Watching the video, a few things stand out. For one, Garner is clearly the biggest man in the shot. He's also outnumbered by police officers.

    The New York City medical examiner's office
    also offered pertinent facts when it classified Garner's death as a homicide this summer.

    He died because of a "compression of neck (chokehold), compression of chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police," the office found, while also calling Garner's "acute and chronic bronchial asthma, obesity and hypertensive cardiovascular disease" contributing factors.


    In other words, there was a chokehold, and it played a part in Garner's death.


    Which raises the question: Should the chokehold have been used at all?


    The answer depends -- as it has with many aspects of this case, which has spurred large protests in New York and beyond -- on who you ask.


    For Garner's family, and the thousands who protested Wednesday night in support of them, there's no doubt: The police officer's actions, including the chokehold, were uncalled for.


    "I don't know what video they were looking at," said Garner's mother, Gwen Carr. "Evidently, it wasn't the same one that the rest of the world was looking at."


    A family lawyer, Jonathan Moore, said that Garner should have gotten at most a summons to appear in court for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes, and he shouldn't have been treated as he was.


    "(The officer) clearly was violating his own departmental regulations," Moore said of Pantaleo's chokehold. "He clearly was using excessive force."


    Forensic expert: Chokeholds can be deadly


    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."


    "It's a very dangerous chokehold, because you can damage the very delicate structures in the throat," Kobilinsky told CNN. "... There are a lot of things police can do to prevent something like this."


    When you resist arrest -- physically resist -- bad things can happen.
    Tom Fuentes, CNN analyst and
    ex-FBI official


    Before he became an assistant director with the FBI and, now, a CNN law enforcement analyst, Tom Fuentes was a police officer. He was never taught the hold that Pantaleo used, but he was instructed how to "to put pressure on both sides of the carotid artery to cut off blood flow to the brain or reduce it until the person fainted."

    "It supposedly did no permanent damage," Fuentes said.


    But many police departments, like in New York, decided to prohibit such chokeholds "because it was so easy to misapply it and put pressure directly on the throat, directly choking the person cutting off air as opposed to making them faint."


    As Fuentes explained, "It was just too easy to have an accident."


    NY Daily News cover: 'We can't breathe'


    Fmr. NYPD cop: That's not a chokehold

    Garner: My husband's death not in vain

    'At a certain point, they've got to touch him'

    Yet this doesn't mean the former FBI assistant director or other law enforcement experts believe Pantaleo should be charged or even disciplined for what he did to Garner.


    Fuentes says, from the video, it looks to him that the officer "is trying to bring him down and, in the process of holding him, he does have his forearm across his throat and is choking him. And that is unfortunate."


    The CNN analyst also says people should put themselves in the police officers' shoes. How long can they wait to arrest someone, whether they are accused of murder or something relatively minor?

    And, if a person does not comply, what can they do -- let him go or step in, perhaps using force?


    "At a certain point, they've got to touch him," Fuentes said. "That's just the way it goes. And when you resist arrest -- physically resist -- bad things can happen."


    That point was echoed by Tom Verni, a former NYPD detective and police academy instructor. He told CNN that, after Garner was told he'd be arrested but would not comply, "that debate is not going to go on for hours on end."


    "I don't know of any other officer that would have really done all that much different," Verni said. "If you Monday-morning-quarterback this situation, anyone could come up with 1,000 different ways that they think they could have handled it at that time and place... (But) people make certain choices when they're interacting with police."


    Legal analyst: System 'designed for officer safety'


    This story is not over.


    The U.S. Justice Department, under the direction of Attorney General Eric Holder, has launched a civil rights investigation into Garner's death. (Garner was black and Pantaleo is white, the same racial breakdown as in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by then-Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson -- a case that also triggered widespread protests and did not result in a grand jury indictment.)

    President Barack Obama has weighed in as well, saying, "We are not going to let up until we see a strengthening of the trust and a strengthening of accountability that exists between our communities and law enforcement."

    And, as Bratton told CNN, "if there's a finding of guilt" in the NYPD's review of Garner's death, "a decision will be made as to an appropriate penalty or discipline."


    Yet Mark O'Mara, a veteran defense attorney and CNN legal analyst, noted that the grand jury decided not to indict Pantaleo because jurors couldn't agree that there was enough evidence to say he "acted in a criminally negligent way."


    Changing the law -- perhaps to bar chokeholds or put tighter restrictions on police when they try to arrest someone -- could affect future cases like that of Garner.


    But as it stands now, defense attorney and CNN analyst Danny Cevallos said, the current system is not set up that way.


    "Once (police) make an arrest, everything is designed for officer safety," Cevallos said. "And if a person doesn't immediately comply, then they can move right up the force continuum as needed. That's the way they're trained."

    http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/04/us/eri...html?hpt=hp_t1

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    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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