Wikipedia is usually pretty accurate. That data comes from the following bureau report: http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-02.pdf
They kind of killed him dead. I would say that's more than kind of rough with him regardless of why they were stopping him. Actually there are a lot of reasons to believe what the cops were doing would result in the guy dying since the NYPD banned the practice in 1993. The New York City Police Department has issued an order banning the use of choke holds, the restraining maneuvers that cut off the flow of blood and oxygen to the brain and have been blamed in the deaths of suspects here and around the nation. http://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/24/nyregion/kelly-bans-choke-holds-by-officers.html
The guy died because he was morbidly obese and had all sorts of health problems that no one could have known about.....and none of it would have even happened if he didn't resist arrest. Since he was a willing participant in his own death, I have a hard time being sympathetic.
1. The guy died but not from them being too rough. 2. Choke holds could potentially kill someone... but it is rare and happens if someone has health problems. The only way to kill a healthy person with a choke hold is to hold it for an excessive amount of time after the person has passed out. Usually what happens is a person will pass out, and when you let go they wake up in a few seconds. So yes, the guy died, and he had health problems. The officer probably should not have put him in a hold like that. His intent wasn't to kill the guy, and I'm sure he wasn't even trying to make him lose consciousness. It looked as if he was trying to restrain him and isn't experienced enough with using that maneuver to know what exactly he was doing to the guy.
I accept your stats. On a side note I appreciate that your making well researched arguments. Unfortunately that's getting to be a rarity on D&D these days. I don't want to rehash the Ferguson case but as you note the cause of the encounter wasn't a violent crime so I'm not sure if that would've shown up in a search of violent crimes. Further in the Eric Garner case it wasn't a violent crime and while I agree that LEO Pantelone didn't intend to kill Garner he was reckless and operated against established NYPD procedure. I agree statistically any LE killing of a civilian is rare regardless of what race compared to all of the encounters with LE. That is like saying that plane crashes are very rare but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be concerned about better maintenance and training when it comes to airlines. I've said this many times but this goes back to the nature of the relationship LE and the population in general and what Protect and Serves means. Too many seem willing to accept that the logical outcome of an encounter with an LE and a civilian where nothing less than submission and even coddling is arrest or worse. In other words that we should rightfully fear LE and rather than consider them as a necessary but no more important or faliable than any other part of society.
