I’ve kinda noticed that almost all news organization now leave off how Eric Garner came to meet up with the cops, and how the scene developed.
To put it in the right perspective....Eric had dealings with cheap cigarette sales (NO-New York City taxation). Brought in from Indian reservation sales or cheap cigarette taxation states (West Virginia at 55 cents a pack and North Carolina at 45 cents a pack)...it’s a simple act to take $10,000...cross the border...buy bulk...drive back and sell smokes on the streets of New York City at $1 to $2 off the normal street cost (note, for this argument, NYC smokes tax is $4.35).
While arrested before...Eric has yet to ever be convicted. You can figure various reasons....lack of prosecution capability....weak judge...limited evidence...etc.
So, the cops came around Eric on this occasion....wanted him to cooperate for another arrest, and Eric declined. He just wasn’t going to cooperate with the cops. No one wanted to use the Taser on the guy...so they went to the old method of the chock-hold....note: illegal by city standards via cops since 1993. Eric was a 350-lb guy....an asthmatic....probably not in good shape....and died because of events that he triggered and the cops simply wandered into.
The city will fire the cop involved....pay off the wife with something like $1 million, and some city hall guy will gift Eric Garner with a statue in the middle of town....probably with a pack of smokes in his pocket as a symbol of nature and it’s unpleasant epic endings.
Yeah....a guy just surviving off the street....selling cheapo smokes and cheating the city out of taxes.
My general take? I think the cops will refuse to handle any cigarette tax situation for the next year or two in retribution. The city audit guys will complain over too many North Carolina smokes in New York City, and comedians will talk of the unfairness of this whole thing. Life in the big city.
Indian reservation cigarettes are $3.95 per pack.
That’s less than half of what New York City taxes on cigarettes are; $4.35
No wonder there’s a black market.
In Tax Fight, Tribes Make, and Sell, Cigarettes