A Choking in NY

Started by Knightshadow, December 05, 2014, 01:13:02 PM

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Ephiral

Quote from: Inkidu on December 05, 2014, 10:20:59 PMOkay, but say he was jaywalking and the cop approached him with the intent of writing him a ticket and the perpetrator starts pushing and shoving, what do you expect a cop to do when someone starts acting such a way to a simple citation?
Soft empty-hand control, with the goal of getting him into cuffs. Why are you acting like this is such a mystery? Use-of-force policies are a thing.

Inkidu

Several news reports state that Garner refused to be handcuffed. The key to defusing the situation was putting the parolee in handcuffs. Cops do it all the time just to detain people so stuff like this doesn't happen.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Valthazar

Eric Garner's daughter says that she does not feel this is a racial issue, but more an issue of police officers abusing their powers.  Despite this, it is unfortunate how the media continues to use this as an opportunity to divide people along racial lines.

Ephiral

Quote from: Inkidu on December 05, 2014, 10:38:47 PM
Several news reports state that Garner refused to be handcuffed. The key to defusing the situation was putting the parolee in handcuffs. Cops do it all the time just to detain people so stuff like this doesn't happen.
Which is why I didn't say "politely ask him to surrender", but nice try.

Inkidu

Quote from: Ephiral on December 05, 2014, 10:42:47 PM
Which is why I didn't say "politely ask him to surrender", but nice try.
Does not follow.

Generally if the cops try to handcuff you and you refuse that rarely works out will for anyone.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Ephiral

Quote from: Inkidu on December 05, 2014, 10:50:20 PM
Does not follow.

Generally if the cops try to handcuff you and you refuse that rarely works out will for anyone.
And yet, somehow, more than thirty-three thousand people per day, most of them presumably unhappy about this, wind up alive and in handcuffs in the US.

Inkidu

Quote from: Ephiral on December 05, 2014, 10:55:02 PM
And yet, somehow, more than thirty-three thousand people per day, most of them presumably unhappy about this, wind up alive and in handcuffs in the US.
Yep, and if he had just allowed himself to be detained the first time, you know in a bit of acceptance of his obvious perpetration of a crime, he'd still be alive.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Apple of Eris

Quote from: Knightshadow on December 05, 2014, 01:13:02 PM
I'd like to open up the floor on the Eric Garner death in NYC and police procedures.

He also died from more the just the 'chokehold' which makes for a nice slogan. What is buried in the CNN article was "But the medical examiner also listed acute and chronic bronchial asthma, obesity and hypertensive cardiovascular disease as contributing factors in Garner's death". Clearly his resisting arrest contributed to his death because of his poor health. You can bet nearly every criminal resisting arrest says they can't breathe, you are hurting them, the baby is sleeping or whatever they can think of.

Did he have asthma and was overweight and hard cardio problems? Sure. None of which were the -cause of death-. The Medical Examiner's report itself lists the cause of death as compression of the neck and chest, along with Garner's positioning on the ground while being restrained by police. The other conditions were merely contributing factors. Essentially if the police hadn't used an ILLEGAL procedure to take down a man who was unarmed and non-threatening this man would still be alive. The coroner even pronounced this a homicide for gods' sakes.  Saying it was the fault of the asthma this man is dead is like saying if you stab a hemophiliac it's not the stab wound that killed them, just the fact they won't stop bleeding.

And regardless of what the daughter says, this IS a racial issue. White suspects are routinely not taken down with force the way black suspects are. Police seem to be more ready and willing to use violence against African-American than whites, and that is a problem and an issue that needs to be addressed.

Look as a former attorney and as a victim of crime I've dealt with police a fair amount of time. Most of them are really good people, and I don't think anybody is arguing that the majority of them are not, so lets just take that argument right out of there. Protesting against the tactics used by some officers is not a condemnation of all police officers, it's calling attention to the abuses being perpetrated, probably not even maliciously, by some of these officers.

The next real issue I see is these prosecutors... These people have to WORK with police and if they try to hard to prosecute them, well that's going to really screw up their working relationships. What's truly needed in cases like these is an independent prosecutor, preferably federal or state, NOT local, who can deal with these cases when an officer is the defendant. The DA's office on local levels has too much at stake to truly go after abuses by local police forces, and it needs to change. I say this because when a prosecutor goes to a grand jury to seek an indictment, as the have in over 162,500 times in a two year span (2009-10) juries voted NOT to indict in only 11 cases. 11! That's a percentage so small my calculator gives me an error when I try to figure it out (I got this in excel 0.006769230769%). That's less than one one hundredth of a percent! Essentially ANYTIME a prosecutor moves to indict, that baby is going to trial. EXCEPT when they indict a police officer? Sorry, but that tells me something fishy is going on, and a man who need not have died will get no real justice.


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Ephiral

#33
Quote from: Inkidu on December 05, 2014, 10:59:56 PM
Yep, and if he had just allowed himself to be detained the first time, you know in a bit of acceptance of his obvious perpetration of a crime, he'd still be alive.
So you're saying every one of those thirty-three thousand people surrender peacefully? You're seriously, seriously trying to pretend that soft-control techniques either do not exist, are not commonly authorized law enforcement practice, or never work?

EDIT: Because... it's important to note here: They didn't even try. The chokehold was literally the very first control hold attempted.

Inkidu

Quote from: Ephiral on December 05, 2014, 11:04:40 PM
So you're saying every one of those thirty-three thousand people surrender peacefully? You're seriously, seriously trying to pretend that soft-control techniques either do not exist, are not commonly authorized law enforcement practice, or never work?
No.

If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Zakharra

Quote from: Apple of Eris on December 05, 2014, 11:01:43 PM
And regardless of what the daughter says, this IS a racial issue. White suspects are routinely not taken down with force the way black suspects are. Police seem to be more ready and willing to use violence against African-American than whites, and that is a problem and an issue that needs to be addressed.


I have to disagree with you there. If Garner had been an overweight asthmatic white man who acted like Garner did; refusing to be cuffed and resisting, I don't see how the police would have reacted any differently. They still would have taken him down to the ground in order to cuff him., and likely done the same thing (assuming the same police officers) that happened here.  If the guy is big like Garner, then an average sized police officer might feel he/she needs to use more force to take down someone that might outweigh them by half or more. Especially if they are being uncooperative. White, black, Asian, Hispanic, race makes no difference. If you resist arrest you will be forced down and cuffed.

Apple of Eris

Actually, they generally try non-forceful measures first. And usually, unless there is an imminent threat, do their best to talk a suspect down. I don't see that at all in the video, I see an almost immediate escalation to force.
Men are those creatures with two legs and eight hands.  ~Jayne Mansfield
To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first, then call whatever you hit the target. ~Ashleigh Brilliant

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Ephiral

Quote from: Inkidu on December 05, 2014, 11:06:59 PM
No.
Then I'm confused how you get from "soft-control techniques exist, are authorized, and are often effective" to "attempting to get handcuffs on a suspect who refuses rarely works out well for anyone".

Shjade

#38
Quote from: Knightshadow on December 05, 2014, 02:30:29 PM
Again, NOT an excuse for the results, but a possible motive on their part.

If they're not an excuse for the results, why do their possible motives matter?

Quote from: Inkidu on December 05, 2014, 10:59:56 PM
Yep, and if he had just allowed himself to be detained the first time, you know in a bit of acceptance of his obvious perpetration of a crime, he'd still be alive.

So resisting arrest - while unarmed and offering no overt violence, I might add, in addition to being heavily outnumbered - is now a crime that merits lethal force?

Duly noted.
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la dame en noir

Why are people so quick to dismiss the racial inequality through higher power?

Is it because you don't experience it? or does it make you uncomfortable? It is VERY true that a police officer is more guarded around a black man than he is with a white male. Thats just the honest truth. I've seen it with my own damn eyes.

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Blythe

I've been looking about doing some reading, and Pantaleo seems to have had previous accusations of misconduct  towards black men before what happened with Garner. With this in mind, the way he handled Garner looks worse.   :-\

Cherri Tart

Quote from: Zakharra on December 05, 2014, 11:12:02 PM
I have to disagree with you there. If Garner had been an overweight asthmatic white man who acted like Garner did; refusing to be cuffed and resisting, I don't see how the police would have reacted any differently. They still would have taken him down to the ground in order to cuff him., and likely done the same thing (assuming the same police officers) that happened here.  If the guy is big like Garner, then an average sized police officer might feel he/she needs to use more force to take down someone that might outweigh them by half or more. Especially if they are being uncooperative. White, black, Asian, Hispanic, race makes no difference. If you resist arrest you will be forced down and cuffed.

Obviously we grew up in different neighborhoods. With all due respect, you're wrong. I've seen it happen too many times not to know better. Whites get treated differently than blacks all too often - not always, but often enough to be see the issue here. All too often blacks start out the encounter with one strike already against them. Race DOES make a difference, as do other factors; appearance, gender, etc - want to bet that, if Garner had been a white woman, acted in the exact same manner, that none of this would have gone down the way it did? btw, size makes no difference. I'm 5'1" and I could just as easily be a threat and take a lot more force to take me down than an overweight, out of shape black guy in poor health. Any GOOD cop would know this. It was a total over reaction, there is zero doubt about that.
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Silverfyre

#42
Race makes no difference?  This "I don't see race!" mentality is part of the whole problem of racism in this country.  Race IS a factor, especially in cases like this.  If race didn't make a difference, we wouldn't have the KKK or needed a Civil Rights Movement (and still do!).  The factor that "Oh, he had a criminal past!" is even being considered in justifying his death just shows it even more.  So the guy, because he was obese and had a criminal past, deserved what he got?  Keep digging for reasons to make yourself feel better over your continued privilege.  How disgusting.

This makes me physically ill to see this type of mentality in trying to justify racism and murder.


Zakharra

  Cherri Tart, Silverfyre, the problem I see with people calling it racist right off the bat because of the race of the police officer and perpetrator is that all too often people who  do that use the racist card first just because of the race of the police and perpetrator. Maybe I do live in an area with not as much violence (the nearest large city is Spokane (population 209,000)),  and certainly not as many deaths, but from what I have seen on the news here, if a perpetrator is  white or any race, male or female, they will use force to take you to the ground indiscriminately sometimes. They would do that to a white, a black, an Asian or Hispanic, male or female if they resisted arrest. Race and/or gender wouldn't make any difference. As someone said here, I would call that more of a case of police abuse of power if too much force is used than being race motivated if the perpetrator was a minority, much like I consider the Garner case. to be The man's own daughter she says doesn't consider the incident racist.

Which brings me back to the point I am trying to make:  Yes there are groups like the KKK and there was a major need for the Civil Rights movement, and there still is in some cases, but not all violence against minorities is because of racism. Those who consider the case racist might be looking at it that way because they have a tendency to look at -any- case against minorities as racist just because of the color of the skin. It is real easy to find racist things when you're predisposed to think of everything as racist. All I am asking is that people think before using the race card on an incident. Despite what you* or others might think, it doesn't automatically mean minority violence is racist.

  * the you is a general you, not meaning anyone here on E. I'm not accusing anyone here of racism, I just want people to think hard on it before calling any attack racially motivated just because the people involved were of different ethnic backgrounds.

Silverfyre

Race shouldn't make a difference is a wonderful sentiment but hardly the reality.

The amount of unarmed blacks that are shot and killed by police is alarmingly high. Police in the United States are fatally shooting one person a day on average, at least in 2007.  Now if that doesn't speak for an over usage of excessive force (based on racism or not), I don't know what does.  That doesn't even bring up the issue of racial profiling and how it fits into prison statistics and demographics.

Trying to justify that this murder was racially motivated or not is really moot at this point for the end results are the same; a police officer used excessive force in the form of an illegal choke hold and killed an unarmed man.  I think that is really the important issue but when it comes on a wave of visible racial profiling and police acts of brutality, it really points out the larger issue of racism in this country.  The data is there and while this incident might not (I personally doubt it) be related to race, racism is more than alive and well and it is running rampant.

(Sources: http://www.colorlines.com/archives/2007/11/killed_by_the_cops.html, http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/08/police-shootings-michael-brown-ferguson-black-men)


Silverfyre

So yes, I think we both see what happened to Eric Garner as being differently motivated but still agree that it was police brutality. This was a horrible excessive usage of force by the police and trying to justify his death for being a criminal and obese is just... sickening. 


consortium11

Quote from: Cherri Tart on December 05, 2014, 10:05:02 PM
Jaywalking is a crime too. A very minor infraction. So is littering. Yes, what he was doing was illegal. Is it on the same level as armed robbery or murder? Obviously not. A fine would not have been out of place. Lethal force, however, was.

I'm not sure I quite see what your point is here.

No-one that I'm aware of is alleging that the police suspected him of selling "loosies" and decided to kill him for doing that. They suspected him of selling "loosies", decided to detain him and in the struggle when doing so used a choke hold which led to his death. As I've said above I think that should lead to criminal charges; either manslaughter (or the equivalent) or murder.

But the issue is that they were overzealous in attempting to detain him and used a choke hold while doing so. If they'd decided to detain him for jaywalking or littering the situation would be exactly the same. The only real difference between the crimes you list and selling untaxed cigarettes is that due to the huge amount of revenue New York makes from cigarette taxes the police have been put under pressure (combined with the "broken windows" policy) to strictly enforce those laws... but that's an issue for the state, vice tax and high tax advocates in general to face up to, not the police in this specific incident.

Cherri Tart

Quote from: consortium11 on December 06, 2014, 10:52:15 AM
I'm not sure I quite see what your point is here.

No-one that I'm aware of is alleging that the police suspected him of selling "loosies" and decided to kill him for doing that. They suspected him of selling "loosies", decided to detain him and in the struggle when doing so used a choke hold which led to his death. As I've said above I think that should lead to criminal charges; either manslaughter (or the equivalent) or murder.

If he was a suspect in an armed robbery or a murder, then the police might have reason to believe that he was violent and might take precautions or be prepared to be aggressive if he did something that warranted it. Selling loose cigs, however, or Jaywalking, would probably not get the same level of readiness or automatically trigger such a reaction.
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Cherri Tart

Quote from: Zakharra on December 06, 2014, 10:03:01 AM
  Cherri Tart, Silverfyre, the problem I see with people calling it racist right off the bat because of the race of the police officer and perpetrator is that all too often people who  do that use the racist card first just because of the race of the police and perpetrator. 

Hard not to when all the the recent incidences involve white cops shooting black men and kids. should we, instead, play the gender card? cops hate dudes? not seeing a lot of white kids getting shot, or black cops doing the shooting. maybe not all are racially motivated, but it certainly suggest that it's an issue.
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Blythe

#49
Quote from: Blythe on December 05, 2014, 02:00:19 PM
More officers could have been brought in to restrain him properly or chase him down or whatever it took to do it right.

Ah, I have watched the video of what happened to Garner. I had to wait to watch it as I was worried it would upset me badly. I was right. I was horrified and angry after I watched it. Up until this point, I had only seen very small seconds of isolated clips. The full video...that was appalling.

I am retracting the part in bold here of what I said. I saw how many officers there were, how the chokehold was continued even after one of Garner's arms was behind his back to be cuffed, and he was well on the ground as multiple officers assisted. With that many officers present, Eric Garner could easily have been arrested nonviolently or with a minimum of force. That situation did not need more officers. All apologies for the rather inaccurate call for more officers that I made.