I guess it is OPEN SEASON to kill black men in America...no one seems to care.

Neither of us are lawyers, but I am guessing that a lawyer arguing the case for the deceased would argue that the NY police departments own policy decision on chokeholds based on the increasing number of deaths resulting from chokeholds would suggest that a "reasonable" police officer wouldn't do chokeholds.

I don't know if police officers are trained on this policy, but I would bet that at the least the policy would be in writing, so I suspect the deceased person's attorney would produce the policy in writing. And if training did happen, would produce that.

Finally, the attorney would produce the video... and ask the jury whether it appears reasonable that the police officer needed the chokehold with the deceased.

 

Saying that he shouldn't have done it isn't the same as saying that he knew or had reason to believe it would cause the man's death. It's obvious that he shouldn't have done it, and he should be fired for doing so, but that doesn't mean he knew, or a reasonable person would have known it would cause the man to die.

If the prosecutor showed the video it would show the size disparity between the officers and the man resisting arrest which suggests that normal tactics might not be effective.

Either way, what matters at the end of the day is that the grand jury thought that the cop's actions were legally justifiable to the point where they didn't see evidence that any crime might have been committed. All that's left now is to accuse the prosecutor or bias or racism, and to accuse the grand jury of racism and bias.

 

I assume y'all have been discussing this NYC case? I don't want to even bother reading through the nonsense posted through this entire thread (most if it by the delusional ignorant racist aka Remii).

However, I would like to share my thoughts on this case:

1) It doesn't seem like this has anything to do with race. So once again, people need to stfu about it being a white on black thing. You can make that argument, but use relevant cases to do so, please. Otherwise, it only disparages your argument.

2) Don't look at what the crime is, whether it was theft, jay walking, or murder, if the officer was placing this man under arrest, and he wasn't allowing them to do so, they have the right to physically force you under arrest. Resisting arrest doesn't mean you have to swing at an officer, or run away. Simply being a large man and not wanting to be cuffed (he pulled away) is resisting arrest. How long are they supposed to wait? 5 minutes? 10 minutes? an hour? Give up? At some point, there was going to by a physical altercation. And it was justified.

3) The coroner states that the chokehold was a factor in his death, but not the only reason. His weight, health, and size also contributed to asphyxia. Officers are apparently trained to block blood flow through the carotid artery, but the size of this man prohibited the officer from getting his full arm around the suspect.

4) An internal affairs investigator made a comment this morning about this case on KLBJ radio, essentially said that if you are yelling "I can't breathe," you obviously can breathe.

Now with that all being said, I still believe the officer reacted too quickly. Apparently, choke holds are against NYCPD policies, so at the very least he should be punished by the department. I think it was an accident, and unfortunate. It doesn't appear that this man was being aggressive, and it was over a cig tax (which is a ridiculous tax at over $5 in NY). It's a very difficult situation here though, because while the officer did act out of policy, he didn't do anything extremely forceful. According to the IA investigator, he just misapplied the pressure and cut off air flow instead of blood flow to make the suspect faint (due to the size disparity)....

With all of that being said, is this murder? Absolutely not. Is it manslaughter? Possibly. Does it reek of injustice? No. It doesn't. Once again, people like Remii see "white cop kills black suspect" and ignore the facts. The fact is, this man's health COUPLED with the improper choke hold are what lead to his death. Not some over zealous cop looking to kill black men.

However, as bad of an example it is to show racial disparity in "police brutality," it's far better than the Mike Brown case. Anyone who uses that as an example is just straight up ignorant -- and likely a racist themselves.

 

I can't believe there are folks defending these cop's actions.

They had the individual down and out, and they CONTINUED to harass and pound and choke him.

Despicable.

 

No **** Sherlock. Maybe that was the limited number of words he could utter, or maybe he should have been more specific... "Pardon me sir, but you are restricting my airflow and I can not breathe in this position. Thank you Officer..."



F'ing r****ds...

 

This. And people don't know what the hell a grand jury is designed to do. The fact that there's so much debate over whether the cop was guilty or not is indicative of how ridiculous it is that it didn't even go to trial. It's unbelievable.


Let me throw this statistic out there again: 162,000 cases in 2010 were brought before a grand jury. ELEVEN decided not to indict. And you're telling me that this case was SO CLEAR CUT that it didn't deserve a trial?

 

Back in 1999....

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/02/n...officers-have-few-examples-to-guide-them.html

Spoiler

Prosecutors of 4 Police Officers Have Few Examples to Guide Them
By GINGER THOMPSON
Published: April 2, 1999

No New York City police officer has ever been convicted of murder for actions in the line of duty, police officials and criminal justice experts said yesterday.

While four officers await trial on charges of second-degree murder in the shooting death of Amadou Diallo, recent history shows that even indictments of officers on those charges are rare and might signal a shift in the relationship between the courts and the police, and in the public's attitude toward the police.

In their appearance on Wednesday in Bronx County court, Officers Sean Carroll, Edward McMellon, Richard Murphy and Kenneth Boss all pleaded not guilty to the charges against them: two counts each of second-degree murder and one count each of reckless endangerment. If convicted of murder, they will face a maximum of 25 years to life in prison.

The officers, members of the Police Department's Street Crime Unit, fired 41 shots at Mr. Diallo in February as he stood in the vestibule of his apartment building in the Soundview section of the Bronx. Mr. Diallo, 22, a street peddler from West Africa, was unarmed.

Criminal justice experts and lawyers interviewed yesterday said there has been only one previous case in which a grand jury charged a New York City officer with murder: the case of Anthony Paparella. By the opening of that trial in 1992, prosecutors had reduced the charges to manslaughter and negligent homicide. The trial lasted a week, and Officer Paparella was acquitted.

In just a handful of cases, police officers have been convicted of charges less severe than murder, including one officer who was found guilty of manslaughter in 1997 and another who was convicted of negligent homicide in 1995.

The Diallo case, which has touched off protests across the city and shaken the administration of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, marks a new climate in the public's attitude about the police, lawyers and scholars said.

Norman Siegel, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said that the shift in attitudes nationally began in 1991 with the Rodney King case, in which the police were videotaped beating Mr. King on a freeway in Los Angeles. Before that case, Mr. Siegel said, it was hard to get juries and judges to believe that police officers might lie about their conduct. And, he said, it was even harder to fight a reluctance by the courts to punish officers.

Before the King case, ''there was enormous deference to police officers,'' he said. ''In the trials that took place, there was always a subliminal message sent out by the officers: 'We protect you and so you have to protect us. If you don't protect us, we won't protect you.' ''

Mr. Siegel, often a vocal critic of the Police Department, added, ''There has been a sea change on these issues, and it now presents an opportunity where you can get accountability if the facts warrant it, that not only will an officer be indicted, but they will also be convicted.''

History shows, however, that winning such convictions is extremely difficult. In a case that bears similarities to the Diallo shooting, five officers were indicted in 1991 in the death of Federico Pereira, 21, a cook in Queens. Prosecutors charged that the officers strangled Mr. Pereira while trying to subdue him after a fight. Outrage over the case, which led to furious protests, was fanned by the videotape of the police beating of Mr. King, which was being widely shown on television.

Charges were eventually dropped against four of the officers. Officer Paparella, accused of strangling Mr. Pereira, was acquitted.

Officers have also been acquitted in other high-profile cases, including the death of Eleanor Bumpurs, 66, a mentally-disturbed woman who was slain in 1984 by shotgun blasts fired by the police into her Bronx apartment, and the 1994 case of Anthony Baez, 29, who died in a confrontation with the police after a late-night touch football game in the Bronx.

The officer charged in Mr. Baez's death, Francis X. Livoti, was acquitted in state court of criminally negligent homicide. Federal prosecutors, however, charged the officer with violating Mr. Baez's civil rights. Mr. Livoti was convicted and sentenced to seven and a half years in prison.

Andrew Karmen, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the author of ''Crime and Justice in New York City,'' said, ''I think police officers get the benefit of the doubt, that in order to protect their lives and defend themselves they might take actions that might not be permissible if carried out by a civilian.''

In the cases of the New York officers convicted of committing homicide while on duty, no one was initially indicted on murder charges. In the most recent case, Officer Paolo Colecchia was convicted of second-degree manslaughter in 1997 for fatally shooting an unarmed man in the Bronx. The man, Nathaniel Levi Gaines, 25, died from a gunshot wound to the back. Mr. Colecchia was sentenced to one and a half to four and a half years in prison.

In 1995, Jonas Bright, a former New York City housing police officer, was convicted of criminally negligent homicide in the death of Douglas Orfly, whom he shot while searching for a burglary suspect. Mr. Bright was sentenced to one to four years in prison. And in 1977, Officer Thomas Ryan of the 44th Precinct was convicted of criminally negligent homicide in the beating death of Israel Rodriguez.

Except for a rule that protects officers from administrative interviews in the first 48 hours after they wound or kill someone in the line of duty, scholars say, New York officers have no special legal tools that help them avoid conviction.

''They have the support of unions, and so they can afford legal defenses that are not available to the average person,'' said Alfred Blumstein of Carnegie-Mellon University. ''But their most effective tool is an emotional appeal, that they had to make an instantaneous, life-and-death decision and that they were doing their duty.''

Photos: Officer Paolo Colecchia was convicted of second-degree manslaughter in 1997 for fatally shooting an unarmed man in the Bronx. (Charles Wenzelberg, 1997)

Not much has changed.

As I stated before, when you have the persecutor "on the same team" as the police, of course you are going to get a bias effort.

On the chokehold. It was banned decades ago in NYC as a technique by Police. Why? I'm guessing, with the timing of when it got banned, due to the fact that it exactly cause death that lead to an indictment of a police officer. Trained policemen would reasonably know the danger of a chokehold and that it has been banned.

 

that is federal court. They also have an insane conviction rate of 99%.

 

This is like arguing if the sky is blue or purple.

You say the Cops didn't use deadly force? Umm...the cops choked a man and as a result of their actions the man died. The medical examiner cited the cops brutal actions as the cause of death. There's really nothing to argue here. Ignorance is clearly bliss for you it looks like.

The facts I mentioned are not irrelevant. The conduct of a suspect is highly relevant in determining what actions are necessary in subduing him. In this case, it was obvious the guy did not pose any sort of threat to police officers. Clearly obvious.

The Grand Jury declined to indict because the criminal justice system is clearly biased in favor of white, police officers. White police officers do not get indicted when they commit obvious crimes, whereas the rest of society is indicted 99.99% of the time. The system is clearly flawed when outcomes are this radically disparate.

 

I think when you use banned practices to arrest someone and that banned practice was a factor in death then yes the case for manslaughter is certainly there. Precedent has shown even a lower bar is needed for an indictment.

He should have been indicted.

 

So now the size of the person is a component in meeting the legal criteria for resisting arrest?

Can you cite me a State Criminal code in which a person's size comes into play in determining whether they were resisting arrest?

It's funny how the man's health didn't kill him up until the time his throat was compressed unnecessarily and illegally by a douchebag police officer yet you want us to believe it was his health, not the chokehold cited by the medical examiner as the primary cause of death, as the reason he survived.

Just pure 100% ignorance.

 

11 facts about the Eric Garner case the drones here will ignore

1. There is no doubt that Garner was resisting an arrest for illegally selling untaxed cigarettes. Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik put it succinctly: "You cannot resist arrest. If Eric Garner did not resist arrest, the outcome of this case would have been very different," he told Newsmax. "He wouldn't be dead today.

"Regardless of what the arrest was for, the officers don't have the ability to say, 'Well, this is a minor arrest, so we're just going to ignore you.'"

2. The video of the July 17 incident clearly shows Garner, an African-American, swatting away the arms of a white officer seeking to take him into custody, telling him: "Don't touch me!"

3. Garner, 43, had history of more than 30 arrests dating back to 1980, on charges including assault and grand larceny.

4. At the time of his death, Garner was out on bail after being charged with illegally selling cigarettes, driving without a license, mar1juana possession and false impersonation.

5. The chokehold that Patrolman Daniel Pantaleo put on Garner was reported to have contributed to his death. But Garner, who was 6-foot-3 and weighed 350 pounds, suffered from a number of health problems, including heart disease, severe asthma, diabetes, obesity, and sleep apnea. Pantaleo's attorney and police union officials argued that Garner's poor health was the main cause of his death.

6. Garner did not die at the scene of the confrontation. He suffered cardiac arrest in the ambulance taking him to the hospital and was pronounced dead about an hour later.

7. Much has been made of the fact that the use of chokeholds by police is prohibited in New York City. But officers reportedly still use them. Between 2009 and mid-2014, the Civilian Complaint Review Board received 1,128 chokehold allegations.

Patrick Lynch, president of the New York City Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, said: "It was clear that the officer's intention was to do nothing more than take Mr. Garner into custody as instructed, and that he used the takedown technique that he learned in the academy when Mr. Garner refused."

8. The grand jury began hearing the case on Sept. 29 and did not reach a decision until Wednesday, so there is much testimony that was presented that has not been made public.

9. The 23-member grand jury included nine non-white jurors.

10. In order to find Officer Pantaleo criminally negligent, the grand jury would have had to determine that he knew there was a "substantial risk" that Garner would have died due to the takedown.

11. Less than a month after Garner's death, Ramsey Orta, who shot the much-viewed videotape of the encounter, was indicted on weapons charges. Police alleged that Orta had slipped a .25-caliber handgun into a teenage accomplice's waistband outside a New York hotel.

 

I would agree, but not for the reason you think so.

Yes, taking a man to the ground and cuffing him is not deadly force....sad that I even had to point that out.

LOL, now they are "brutal actions"? That's hilarious. The medical examiner also cited the man's poor health and morbid obesity along with the fact that he was laid out in a prone position. He wasn't choked to death, but the choke, along with laying the fat guy flat might have contributed to an asthma attack....brutal you say.

Yes they are, and the fact that you don't realize that shows a striking ignorance on your part.

This is true, but irrelevant in this case because deadly force was not used. Not that it'll help you, but I'll give you the definition of "deadly physical force anyway.

The ONLY reason the man died was because of health conditions that were impossible to know ahead of time thus what they did would not meet this definition.

Which is entirely irrelevant because they didn't use deadly physical force. It would have been relevant if they had shot the guy or hit him in the face with a baseball bat or something like that.

That is a really stupid comment, but go on.

Yes, the man is clearly out to get black people, thank you for this enlightening conversation.

I pointed out to you the exact language of the laws of NY and then pointed out to you how that language would cause a grand jury to determine that there was no cause to suspect a crime was committed according to the laws on the books. That's all I can do. You'll either see that, or you won't.

 

You neglected two additional facts:

(1) The officer in question had complaints on his record
(2) The officer was allowed to talk to the grand jury for two hours. Just like in the Ferguson case, having a defendant testify to a grand jury is considered to be rare.

 

Not sure you understood what I was saying. I'll clarify.

The man's size contributed to how the officer was able to deal with him. If it was a small guy, the officer would easily be able to arrest him. The fact that he was much smaller changes the officer's options because he is not physically capable of forcing such a large man without some use of force.

His size had nothing to do with determining whether or not he was resisting arrest. His size played a key in HOW the officer arrested him. Understand?

Again, you don't seem to understand. His health didn't kill him. His health coupled with the officer's actions killed him. His large frame, asthma, and heart disease contributed to his death. The choke hold obviously was the final blow.

Had the officer done that maneuver to a normal sized healthy man, he probably wouldn't have died. It's unfortunate, but it's not murder.

I do think the evidence still points to the officer being guilty of a crime, but it's not as clear cut as you seem to think it is. Manslaughter possibly? Criminal negligence? It's hard to say because you have to consider what the officer was thinking at the time, his intent if you will. Was his intent to harm this man? Doesn't seem like it. Seems like he was trying to arrest the guy and it was incredibly difficult considering his size.

He used a maneuver banned by the department, and that should play in. But is this a case of excessive force and police brutality? Hardly. It's just an unfortunate situation.

 

What does fact #11 have to do with anything...?

And I noticed that you left out the fact that the police officer used an illegal chock hold.

 

This x1000.

 

Big lawsuit settlement coming up.

 

Probably, Garner's family have a suit against the NYPD for one of their officers using a banned takedown tactic that lead to his death. Civil court is where this case was always headed rather than criminal court

 

i don't know about this one. maybe it's because im overweight myself but i sympathize with this eric garner instead of that thug in st louis. he's a better case to get behind if you dont like police procedure, grand juries, etc. also, the exact same people from the michael brown thread have the same position here. either you dont like cops period {or love them} or you see racism in a lot of places {or you hardly see racism anywhere}. same people, same positions, even though this case is much different.