Posted on 12/04/2014 5:10:23 AM PST by LeoMcNeil
A New York City Grand Jury has refused to indict police officer Danial Pantaleo for the choking death of Eric Garner. Garner was taken down by four police officers conducting a raid against illegal cigarette sellers, of which Garner was one. Garner had a history of selling illegal cigarettes, having been arrested for it a number of times in the past. Unlike the death of Michael Brown, this death was caught on video. The video clearly shows several things. It absolutely shows Garner saying he can’t breathe. It also shows a very large man who starts out the confrontation making a menacing move towards the police. There were 23 people on the Grand Jury, only 12 are needed to indict. The evidence obviously didn’t convince the jurors that the officer committed a criminal offense.
Once again the nations race baitors are crying about racist cops. Garner’s widow stood next to Al Sharpton yesterday decrying the white motherf***ers who she assumes comprised the Grand Jury. Protests ensued in Manhattan and elsewhere yesterday after the decision was announced. The Department of Justice is continuing its investigation, just like it is in the Michael Brown situation. The problem of course is there isn’t any evidence that any of these black men were targeted because they were black. Garner was approached by the police because he was selling illegal cigarettes, he had a history of it. Brown was confronted by police because he fit the description of someone who had just robbed a party store. Race played no factor in any of this, which is why the Department of Justice ultimately won’t bring a case against the police. Eric Holder may want to turn the law into a national discussion on race but he won’t do it unless he can win. These cases aren’t winners.
The real problem in the Garner case is the ridiculous laws that the police are made to enforce. Between Federal, state and city excise taxes and sales taxes the total tax on a single pack of cigarettes is over $7. The average pack of cigarettes in New York costs $14.50. It’s no wonder that people like Garner sell single cigarettes on the street. These people can make a fortune meeting the demands of cigarette smokers while buying smokes in bulk on Indian reservations or in low tax states like Kentucky. Garner is simply meeting the demands of the poor in New York who can’t afford to buy cigarettes due to all the taxes placed upon them. The police are then charged with enforcing these laws, with a priority placed on cigarettes because the state loses tax money when people don’t buy taxed packs of smokes. Thus instead of investigating actual crime in New York, police officers like Daniel Pantaleo are stuck enforcing the city’s revenue code with extreme force if necessary.
What is absolutely not the issue here is race. Race is rarely if ever a factor in deaths caused by police officers. According to the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice and the CDC in 2012 123 blacks were killed by police officers with a gun. In that year 326 whites were killed by the police with a gun. To listen to Sharpton and the media you would think blacks are routinely targeted by the police and killed. As it stands, nearly three times as many whites are killed by the police. Thankfully the numbers are relatively low overall. If anything, based on the crime rate in the black community it appears the police go out of their way not to shoot at blacks. Consider that in 2013 blacks were responsible for 5,375 murders (90%+ were of other black people) and whites were responsible for 4,396 murders. Considering that blacks were responsible for more murders and more crime per capita than whites, you would think their death rate at the hands of police would be substantially higher. If you were to listen to the media, you might think it’s in the thousands.
The police protect black neighborhoods just like they protect white neighborhoods. While the media likes to defend criminals like Michael Brown, they never seem to talk to the average member of a local black neighborhood who is glad the police are protecting them from crime. When police presence increases, crime tends to drop. For many people in crime infested neighborhoods, the cops are a welcome sight. Of course the media never speaks to blacks who will say this and when they do that person is either targeted by neighborhood thugs or is attacked without mercy as we’re seeing with Charles Barkley. If people want to protest New York’s draconian cigarette taxes, which are what ultimately led to Garner’s demise, I’ll be happy to join in. However, race played no role in Garner’s death. When it comes to deaths at the hands of the police, race is almost never a factor.
Lets get something straight. The two instances New York and Ferganson have one thing in common that is not addressed. Both perps were resisting, that in itself is illegal, had they not then they would be here bitching about harassment. If they had been killed, not by resisting but evading and been hit by a car would the results been any different?
It’s likely the events of the arrest contributed to Garner’s death, but the man would be alive today if he complied with arrest #9. You can also thank Bloomberg/Diblasio for the nanny slurpee laws the police are compelled to enforce.
But the lies broadcast that Garner died of a chokehold need to stop. It’s fanning the flames just like Ferguson.
I agree. Based on the video, it’s clear that Garner is resisting arrest. All of the testimony in Ferguson indicates Michael Brown was resisting. It’s really as simple as this, if you don’t want the cops to kill you don’t resist arrest or attempt to flee.
“I don’t think arrest numbers matter as much to the dead man as they do to you.”
Well if the law mattered to Garner, he’d be alive today. I understand he didn’t agree with the law, but he should have taken up getting it changed. I don’t always like laws, like the speed limits but I know I have to follow those laws like everyone else. Do the “little people” get to pick and choose which laws to obey? Another point, there may have been more to the story than just selling illegal cigarettes.
I have seen the perp resisting arrest. No other image needed.
It matters not what initiates the arrest, once you resist the arrest, it is game on, and you are now “fighting the law”. The “law” never loses.
Don’t start no trouble and there will be no trouble........
It was nice discussing with you, too. Thank you.
This guy didn’t die over cigarettes or drugs, or the war on something or other or “taxes”, he died because of something that needs to be fixed in police work at the street level.
This is about blue collar work by armed union men and methods and techniques of routine arrests, not cigarettes and taxes.
But for the cigarette tax law Garner never would have been approached by the police. If he wasn’t approached by the police he wouldn’t have attempted to push them away. Having not attempted to push the cops away Garner wouldn’t have been gang tackled and choked by the cops. If Garner wasn’t gang tacked and choked by the cops, he wouldn’t have died. I’m not going to blame the cops for taking this guy down. He appears to be resisting arrest and when someone does that the cops have a duty to subdue that person and arrest him. The cops don’t know if this guy has a gun or not, for all they know if they step away from him he’ll pull out a gun. The problem is that the cops are playing tax collector while actual criminals rape, pillage and kill all over the city.
LOL, but for whatever crime that brought up a routine arrest nothing would happen.
Whether it is an unpaid traffic ticket, or selling beer, cigarettes or chili dogs illegally, or whatever, the problem with this case is the death caused by the methods and techniques used in this routine arrest.
Methods and techniques that wouldn’t have been used had the arrestee not resisted arrest.
That evidently shouldn’t have been used in this minor and routine arrest when they had all the time and cops they could possibly need to make this routine arrest without the man dying.
At some point people need to start being willing to question these growing numbers of deaths resulting from incompetence and impatience of these union workers.
Instead, you think it is about taxes.
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