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

Sorry Bobby, with all due respect, I agree with Darren Wilson's non-indictment (due to evidence presented) but I just can't follow you on this one.

I've seen the video and it clearly violates NYPD's 'no chokehold' policy.

At the very least, the grand jury should've issued an indictment and let a trial determine guilt or innocence.

My view, the officer is clearly guilty of involuntary manslaughter given his violation of NYPD policy. This policy was put in place specifically to prevent excessive-use-of-force 'accidental' deaths.

 

Typical you with PMS attitude, Band

 

For it to be legally reckless they'd have to prove that the cop was "aware of" and that he "consciously disregarded" a "substantial and unjustifiable risk" and
"that such result will occur or that such circumstance exists". It's pretty hard to prove that the cop knew that the guy was in such poor health that a takedown like that would have killed him.....also, you'd have to prove that taking him down in that manner was "unjustifiable". You can prove that it was against police procedure, but if you look at the rest of the NY code

The last part is what is important, it doesn't say "may use physical force when and to the extent of police procedure" it says "to the extent he or she reasonably believes such to be necessary to effect the arrest. That pretty much kills any hopes of a 2nd degree manslaughter charge and under that definition, it's pretty hard to argue that it's not justifiable under the law.

 

That's a very fair take, I just don't think it would fly under the letter of the law. section 35.30 of the NY penal code very likely protects him from any charge, but IMO he was absolutely wrong for using the method he used and should be fired for it and should never have a job as a cop again.

 

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/FsqJFIJ5lLs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

Sad day in America.

 

This has to be at least manslaughter. Mega civil suit coming. This guy has no business being a cop.

 

I don't know man, isn't negligent and unnecessary use of lethal techniques that resulted in a civilian's death negligent homicide.

 

Who do you call when police officers commit murder?

 

Sorry, I know this is a serious topic, so don't click if easily offended.

Spoiler

 

Well here's the NY law on it

I'd think you'd have to prove that a reasonable person would think that the action would result in the man's death, I think that's pretty hard to prove and if you isolate just the choke hold a normal person wouldn't think that the guy died. Also, given that the medical examiner lists multiple contributing factors to the cause of death, you can't really say that the choke hold is what THE cause of death was. Also, you'd have to show that him doing so was unjustifiable and article 35.30 of the NY code probably suggests that it could be deemed legally justifiable.

Either way, the guy did the wrong thing and should never be a cop again.

 

Well, the NYPD banned use of the chokehold because it could lead to death in certain cases. Do you consider the NYPD reasonable?

 

"could" and "will" are two completely different things. There's no question that he violated NYPD rules and as such he should be fired if he's not already but it's hard to see what he did and think "that will probably kill him" if you didn't already know that he died.

 

As someone else in this thread pointed out already, if I fire a gun up into the air, I know that it "could" kill someone, not necessarily "will" kill someone. However, if the bullet comes down and someone dies, that would be manslaughter. How is this different?

 

I don't see why this would be that hard. The police department banned chokeholds specifically because they could and did kill people. So why wouldn't a reasonable cop know that a chokehold might kill someone?

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/24/nyregion/kelly-bans-choke-holds-by-officers.html

Regardless, the failure here is not a lack of a conviction, but a lack of an indictment. It's not hard to show probable cause here, even if the cop would ultimately be found not guilty.

The fact that grand juries return indictments 99.999% of the time against non-cops and almots never against cops tells us something. From 538:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/ferguson-michael-brown-indictment-darren-wilson/


According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. attorneys prosecuted 162,000 federal cases in 2010, the most recent year for which we have data. Grand juries declined to return an indictment in 11 of them.

...

“If the prosecutor wants an indictment and doesn’t get one, something has gone horribly wrong,” said Andrew D. Leipold, a University of Illinois law professor who has written critically about grand juries. “It just doesn’t happen.”

...

A recent Houston Chronicle investigation found that “police have been nearly immune from criminal charges in shootings” in Houston and other large cities in recent years. In Harris County, Texas, for example, grand juries haven’t indicted a Houston police officer since 2004; in Dallas, grand juries reviewed 81 shootings between 2008 and 2012 and returned just one indictment.



More on the Grand Jury specifically in this case:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/eric-garner-chokehold-staten-island-grand-jury-indict/

 

The major difference is that you'd have a hard time showing that your actions of shooting into the air are legally justifiable while the officer has 35.30 coming to his aid.

Again it's not "might" it's "will" and you still run into the problem with it most likely being legally justifiable under 35.30

 

No way this cop should have been let off. Yeah, his choke hold didn't kill the man, but it seemed to cause him to have an asthma attack which killed him...or maybe it caused enough trauma to his throat and trachea to swell up his already puffy neck which fatally closed off his respiration. Who knows, the report is very ambiguous...the hold itself clearly didn't kill the man as he was being carted off in a stretcher well after the chokehold, still saying "he can't breathe".

It's difficult because so many people are still fuming about the system not wrongfully convicting a police officer that was trying to protect himself and now this happens and this is actually a police officer that has a history of abuse I believe. Either way the guy should've been indicted for something close to manslaughter at least. Hell, was he even suspended?

 

So in your mind, if I do something that I know might kill you - but I'm not 100% sure - and you die, I'm OK?

 

This.

Outraged? Feel marginalized in the modern world?

Make a change at the ballot box...... there is no black or white, or rich or poor...... a vote is a vote.

 

The cop testified (?) or it was argued somehow to the grand jury that he used a headlock not a choke hold -- it is not against the law in NY to use either though it is against NYPD policy. Apparently this was a major factor in the officer not being indicted along with the obvious resisting arrest.

As I stated in the other thread -- this is wrong and the cop should be prosecuted for manslaughter.