Posted on 12/10/2014 12:14:35 PM PST by Kaslin
“I'm minding my business, officer,” pleads the man on the video. “Please just leave me alone.” Minutes later the man, confronted by police for allegedly selling “loose” cigarettes, would be placed in a chokehold and wrestled to the ground, eventually dying from injuries sustained by the restraint.
The video recording of Eric Garner’s death is deeply disturbing, and has once again stoked protests and fiery debates about police tactics and racial biases. However, focusing the anger and debate on racial bias or specific actions by individual police officers, misses the broader and far more important public policy issues raised by this case: the over-criminalization of our society, and the use of the law enforcement power of the state to regulate commercial actions and raise government revenues.
Make no mistake -- whether Garner was targeted because of his race and whether the officers who confronted him employed excessive or improper force, are important issues. And both should be debated and addressed within the context of civil and criminal laws and procedures.
But neither of these questions addresses the far more important issue of why we as a society have clothed police with the authority to consider it within their power to arrest someone for engaging in such a trivial act. Ultimately, it is not so much the police officers who should be the focus of this debate and of our concern; it is ourselves.
If left unanswered, the questions about over-criminalization and abuses of police power to regulate commercial activity and raise revenue, threaten to overwhelm the fundamental principle on which our nation was founded -- that government exists to protect Liberty. Unfortunately, what the Garner and so many other cases have come to reflect is the warped principle that the police power of the state exists to protect government.
How bad this problem has become is illustrated in the growth of the federal criminal code. Just three decades ago, a Justice Department study of the U.S. Code estimated there to be approximately 3,000 criminal offenses. In the years since, the Congress has added nearly 1,500 more crimes to the books. And this does not include the thousands of state and local offenses, or the thousands more regulatory edicts with which individuals and businesses are forced to comply.
While many Americans may believe it is easy to stay out of trouble with the law, and thus avoid confrontations with police, prominent civil rights attorney Harvey Silverglate notes in his seminal work, Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent, this is a myth. Silverglate’s well-documented research into abuses of police and prosecutorial powers establishes that there are so many different and confusing criminal and regulatory laws on the books, that the average person in America cannot make it through a normal day without running afoul of at least three government “gotchas.” As Silverglate correctly concludes, this is no accident. “As a civil liberties matter, a government which has the ability to prosecute innocent citizens at will, is a government which has achieved the power that has characterized all tyrannical governments throughout history,” says Silverglate.
As documented further by Silverglate, despite the sometimes trivial or often technical nature of offenses charged, the laws and regulations on which such prosecutions are based are sufficient to empower the government to use its vast law enforcement powers to control whoever they want whenever they want. This applies whether it is a single citizen attempting to sell something as innocuous as a cigarette on a street corner, or a physician who has prescribed to a patient more of a government-controlled drug than federal or state drug agents have decided is appropriate.
In a broad sense, and as philosopher and noted author Ayn Rand opined more than half a century ago, since there is no way to absolutely control free men, government simply declares so many things “illegal” that it makes it impossible for citizens not to break the law.
Back in the 1930s, federal agents had to spend seven years engaged in creative thinking and investigating in order to find a way to bring to heel Al Capone’s vast criminal empire; finally settling on the then-novel use of the federal tax code. In 21st Century America, federal agents can choose from a lengthy (and ever-expanding) menu of regulatory and criminal offenses on which to easily and quickly build a case against someone as big as an Al Capone or as small as an Eric Garner.
It is not only the incessant drive to control people and businesses that fuels the engine of over-criminalization. Government at all levels has become so big and so costly, that revenues are never deemed sufficient to meet those perceived “needs.” Hence, the drive to find ever more creative – and liberty-stifling – ways to bring in more revenues; such as outlawing the selling of a cigarette by one person to another as a way to ensure such “commercial transactions” are taxable and taxed.
This expansion of police and regulatory powers reflects the unhealthy crony relationship between businesses seeking favors through tax breaks or government-mandated monopolies; the violation of which then leads often to criminal prosecutions.
Ultimately, of course, it is we the people who elect and reelect to public office the legislators, governors and presidents who both expand and abuse the powers to which their oaths of office were sworn. Let us not squander the current opportunity to seriously debate and reform these fundamental problems, by refusing to see the forest for the trees.
Perhaps you'd like to quote from the autopsy report to back up your use of the word "solely".
(Hint: before transferring to the ER I worked in the Pathology Dept of the same hospital.I've seen an autopsy or two in my day as well as read an autopsy *report* or two)
So what was the official charge for selling lose cigarettes and what is the penalty?
You’re dodging and being evasive. You made a stupid remark and now you won’t own up to it.
But please. Go on and tell us more about your employment history. Its just so fascinating.
The coroner found only superficial bruising on one side, which was nowhere near enough to kill or even injure anybody and was consistent with a quick pressure.
Garner had become combative. Even in the video (which started, or at any rate, was shown only from the point at which the confrontation had started, when Garner announced that he wasn’t going to “let himself” get arrested anymore), you can see that the whale-like Garner had his arm raised and was trying to strike the much smaller policeman, who was trying to push his arm back when the other cop put Garner in a headlock from behind in order to pull him off.
The cop released Garner as soon as he pulled him back and when he was on the ground, they cuffed him. Nobody except Garner knew about his heart problems, his asthma, etc. Physical crises related to these problems are triggered by stress and anger, which he obviously had, as well as unaccustomed physical activity, since stolen cigarette selling is not exactly an aerobic exercise. And as soon as one of the cops realized that there was a problem, they called an ambulance, which was there in 4 minutes.
So I can’t see what they could have done otherwise...well, except for Garner, who shouldn’t have attacked the cops in the first place, even though it was his 18th arrest for the same thing, many in the same place...so that shows exactly how much the cops terrified Garner.
Sorry, it was Garner’s fault in every way.
Attitude brought on my THE FOREIGNER, WITHHOLDER and SHARPTON playing the race card led to these two deaths. Brown attacked the cop. Garner was previously arrested and did not resist and with no problems occurring. This time he resisted.
The more I see of these three incidents, the more I believe that the underlying common denominator is black reaction to the perception of being dissed.
Trayvon felt Zimmerman was dissing him by following him (even though his actions, if Zimmerman is telling the truth, gave ample reason to follow him).
Brown felt the cop was dissing him (just by doing his job), sending Brown into a blind, senseless rage.
And Garner was tired of being arrested, so he may have decided the arrests had risen to the level of dissing, and himself went into a rage.
And it's not just a function of black and white interaction. Blacks feeling dissed by other blacks are a leading cause of black violence. And it doesn't take much to trigger such. I have seen it firsthand. The reactions are grossly disproportionate to the nature of the perceived offense.
The point that the citizen was handcuffed and subdued is the point that their health and well being is taken over by .gov.
And that is a bad place to be.
You can see how .gov treated him here. There was no circumstance to treat a person who has lost consciousness and handcuffed than someone who has fallen in a similar instance in a restaurant due to respiratory failure.
The lack of empathy and aid is obvious concerning the police, but the lack of training and basic front line emt skills is disturbing. Police want to by soldier, and do raids and such. But they don't have medics or other heath professionals within their ranks when doing such operations.
True. And we know even though he had been busted before he continued to do it. Maybe Mr Barr can enlighten us on just how many citations should be written before it's OK to initiate an arrest?
Ayn Rand was a sage.
If this news report accurately reflects the findings (yes,the press isn't always accurate) it would appear as if the Richmond County Medical Examiner doesn't completely agree with your conclusion.
... well-documented research into abuses of police and prosecutorial powers establishes that there are so many different and confusing criminal and regulatory laws on the books, that the average person in America cannot make it through a normal day without running afoul of at least three government “gotchas.”
**********
Garner was not out there doing something that he did not know was criminal. He had a long arrest record for the same offense.
... well-documented research into abuses of police and prosecutorial powers establishes that there are so many different and confusing criminal and regulatory laws on the books, that the average person in America cannot make it through a normal day without running afoul of at least three government “gotchas.”
**********
Garner was not out there doing something that he did not know was criminal. He had a long arrest record for the same offense.
And, I did not notice anything in the report mentioning that if the moron had simply complied with the police, he would still be on the street today breaking the law.
It’s worth noting that had Bloomberg gotten his way, something like this might have occurred over a Big Gulp.
Excessive cigarette taxes killed Eric Garner,
can we do away with these taxes now?
Probably ?
Garner had obesity, advanced diabetes, heart disease and asthma.
He allegedly (according to his friend who video recorded the incident) has just 'broken up' a fight, then he was arguing with police, being combative (slapping their hands away), then got into a wrestling contest with them. Overexertion brings on asthma attacks.
He gave all signs of being in the throws of an asthma attack (I can't breathe, I can't breathe), and that led to his brain being starved of oxygen, then his heart failure.
Forgot the s/ tag. Sadly, none of this plays in to the lame stream media-ites who, like the Eagles song said, “Give Us Dirty Laundry.” “Is the head dead yet?” type reporting. If it bleeds, it leads. And the no/low can’t be bothered to find out more morons buy it every time.
The cops were called because of a fight in front of the store.
When they arrived, only Eric and his videorecording friend were still there.
Since Eric was ALSO there selling loosies, they attempted to place him under arrest. The store manager didn’t care WHAT he was taken away for, he just wanted him gone. That is when Eric started claiming he didn’t “DO ANYTHING”. Which wasn’t true.
It reminds me of the scene in GOODFELLOWS.
A real ‘choke hold’ doesn’t cut off the supply of air.
It cut’s off the flow of blood to the brain.
Even when you hang someone with a rope, they die either from a broken neck or from the blood flow being cut off to the brain. You don’t die from not being able to breathe.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.