Posted on 12/05/2014 8:04:57 AM PST by KeyLargo
December 03, 2014
So Like Everyone On the Right is Now Outraged by the Garner Death Just Like They Were Outrage by the "Militarization of Police" in Ferguson
I'm a dissenter.
Frankly, I think everyone on the right is looking to prove "We're not one of those sorts of people who automatically defends anyone who kills a black person."
And we did that in three Racial Incidents running. I know my first reaction in both Trayvon Martin's case, and in Michael Brown's case, was to side with the black victim.
And maybe this is the wrong time to put my foot down, but I've been suckered twice, and I won't be suckered a third time.
Did Eric Garner deserve to die? No. The crime that began all this was selling "Loosies," single cigarettes out of the pack, in defiance of the state tobacco tax laws and all the other nonsense laws they throw on people about only selling things in their original packaging. Minor sh_t. Nonsense.
And yet, he defied police orders when they attempted to arrest them. When they tried to cuff him, he defied them again, pulling his arms away. He decided, as a Jury of One, that the law was silly and he would not be being arrested today.
I can't entirely blame him for feeling that way, but I know that if the police attempt to arrest you for a law which you are in fact breaking, even if you think it's a minor harassing sort of law, you do not have the right to resist arrest.
What followed is what follows in all resisting-arrest cases: some escalating violence as the police attempt to physically impose their will on the noncompliant suspect.
Some number of such situations will result in the death of the suspect.
I guess I just don't understand how we say this guy is guilty of manslaughter, given that in almost all cases where a guy's heart just gives out in a struggle, we could find some error in procedure as a hook to throw the guy in jail for.
This is a tragedy, in my mind. Eric Garner wasn't much of a criminal threat, and the police did seem too eager to use force.
Nevertheless, we actually pay them to use force when a law-breaking suspect (even one breaking a trivial law) resists arrest. That is the job we've given them.
To say this guy is guilty of murder or manslaughter seems to me to be a case of scapegoating the people we've tasked with implementing a policy that we have imposed ourselves.
If trivial laws should not provide grounds for arrest, We should change the laws to say so.
If cops should just let a non-compliant but non-felony suspect go if he resists arrest, we should make that officially part of their job description.
We did something similar -- wrongly, I think, but we did it-- when we made it police policy to let felony flight cases just drive away, rather than engage in a high-speed chase. (Except when cops suspect a major felony.)
Now, if we're keeping the laws as they are, and sending out cops to enforce piece-of-sh_t minor laws and arrest people rather than cite them with a ticket, that's on us.
And we have to accept that out of every 10,000 or so arrests, there are going to be some deaths. Some deaths will be the kind where we can definitely say the cop was culpable and committed a great crime.
Others, however, will simply be the result of mistakes and misfortunes, and will be due to decisions we have made as a society every bit as they are the fault of the officer executing our policy.
This just doesn't look like murder to me. Or manslaughter. It's not like the cops wanted to be there. We were paying them to have this encounter. Having this encounter was the duty we charged them with.
The definition of a scapegoat is an individual made to suffer for decisions made by the group.
I'm tired of all the scapegoating of late.
Objection: Inspector Cussword takes strong exception to my attempt to read his mind and his True Beliefs, in claiming that people on the right just want to get on the liberal side on one of these cases.
That's fair. I shouldn't have done that.
That said, in three situations running, I have seen many people on the right take the "liberal" side of the argument initially.
It does seem to be a pattern.
It could be that this is, as I suggested, the wrong time for me to decide I won't be hoodwinked. I have to confess, I saw this video of Eric Garner's killing a long time ago, and my impression when I saw it was -- Sh_t, that is a callous thing I just saw, which resulted in a man's death.
But I guess I'm just sick of being bamboozled by a media that reports only one side of these cases, and the Mob's pressurizing of all comers to Join the Mob.
I may be reacting too quickly here -- in the opposite direction.
Well, I'll keep an open mind.
But what I reject is this idea that if a man dies, there must be a criminal violation.
That's simply way false. There are situations in which a homicide (all deaths caused by men are homicides, whether crimes or not) are legal.
Self-defense (Trayvon Martin) is one such case.
Effecting a lawful arrest is another.
Without something I can look at and feel, in my gut, When that guy did that, he was acting so far out of bounds he's guilty of the most serious crime that exists, I'm inclined to resist the quick judgment.
Yes, but you’re confusing the MSM with the truth. They want no part of that.
“Was a choke hold the only and proper resort at the time?”
Personally, I believe the best response would have been for the officers to ignore it and just look the other way as more and more officers are doing across this Country today for their own self-preservation.
I will protect myself and my family. Everyone else is on their own to choose to rely on their local government to protect them.
Police Have No Duty To Protect Individuals
https://www.firearmsandliberty.com/kasler-protection.html
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“I think Darren Wilson screwed up” Can you elaborate? |
All Cops Are Scum.
This common thought here at FR was suppressed a great deal as Ferguson played out. But now this Garner incident has given new voice to the libertarian mantra that cops are scum.
There was no chokehold
We had a case in Canada 2007. A large forty year old Polish entrant to Canada was tasered at the immigration offices in Vancouver. He had by an error left in a holding room for eight hours. The poor man went frantic, smashing furniture. Four police subdued him.
Turns out he had absolutely gone "cold turkey" from cigarettes and vodka. He wanted to be fit for a "new life" in Canada. Medical authorities said that two weeks of this set him up for a disaster. He should have tapered off. His system was thus very weak. It started a nation wide furore, of course. Excuse the ramble, but physical condition is the key in many cases. Just bad luck for the police here.
The writer is a liar, “”Frankly, I think everyone on the right is looking to prove “We’re not one of those sorts of people who automatically defends anyone who kills a black person.”””
Mark Steyn and me for instance are not interested in race in regards to this man’s death during a routine, daylight, petty crime arrest.
Once again, the law breaker made a stupid decision, which to me seems little different from the stupid decisions that occurred in the other two cases. I think we all regret the outcome, but I sure cannot blame the police. Imagine the landscape without them.”
The stupid mistake in all three cases was made long before the incidents happened. When people are raised to disrespect all authority, teachers, police, et cetera, they will likely not make the right decision at a crucial time which could end in losing their life.
The parents of all these young people should look to themselves and how they raised their sons and how they are raising any that are still under their influence.
Agree 100 percent. As I’ve said in other posts here, the black community has a problem and playing the “I’m-a-victim” card no longer holds sway. Throwing more of my money at it isn’t going to solve the problem, either, especially when those funds are just political giveaways, like free cell phones. Until there are positive moves from the black community to start cleaning up its own house and quit leaning on the victim crutch, I say enough’s enough. Start with piecing the black family together might be a first step and quit rewarding the families where the father skips out on his responsibilities.
Of course it doesn't. And the guy who took the video was just arrested for illegal possession of a weapon. He claims he's being targeted because of the video, but that doesn't explain his previous 27 arrests since 2009 on charges ranging from fare evasion and marijuana possession to a robbery in May. Also busted twice for gun possession, and in January 2013 he was charged with menacing with a gun.
“I’m amazed at all the supposed conservatives calling for the cop’s head. Maybe they’re trying to make up for Ferguson and get in good with the left. They should be blaming whatever government agency made it a crime to sell lose cigs”
The Role that Obama’s Runaway Bureaucracy Played in the Death of Eric Garner
December 3, 2014
Garner was reportedly selling “loosies,” individual cigarettes taken out of their original packaging. That’s a crime?
Yep. Since 2010, that’s a crime, sayeth the unaccountable bureaucrats at the Food and Drug Administration.
An FDA rule issued on June 22, 2010 — well within the Obama era, under a president who has unleashed bureaucracy on the entire country — mandates that individual cigarettes cannot be sold without their original packaging. You must not sell an unhealthy product that everyone knows is unhealthy unless it’s still in the polluting box that it originally came in.
If you sell cigarettes, you must comply with the following bullet points. Note the bold.
Check photo ID of everyone appearing under age 27 who attempts to purchase cigarettes, cigarette tobacco, or smokeless tobacco.
Only sell cigarettes, cigarette tobacco, and smokeless tobacco to anyone age 18 or older. **
Only sell cigarettes, cigarette tobacco, and smokeless tobacco in a direct, face-to-face exchange. ***
Do NOT break open cigarette or smokeless tobacco packages to sell products in smaller amounts.
Do NOT sell cigarette packages containing fewer than 20 cigarettes.
Do NOT sell single cigarettes, also called “loosies”.
Do NOT give away free samples of cigarettes.
Do NOT give away free samples of smokeless tobacco except from a “qualified adult-only facility.”
Do NOT sell flavored cigarettes or flavored cigarette tobacco (other than menthol).
* This is only a summary of the laws. For the full list of federal laws, visit: www.fda.gov/BreakTheChain.
Every cop has the latitude of discretion in whether to arrest or not and the cop just needs to articulate why he did or did not arrest in the incident report.
Bear that in mind when you think about the Eric Garner arrest.
It seems to me that nowadays, cops are too heavily invested in their ego’s to defer the arrest. They could have sought an arrest warrant, further bolstering their position if the guy stresses out so bad his heart gives out (like in the Garner case). Also, by the time the warrant is issued and they get around to arresting him, would Garner still be as agitated? Would he turn himself in knowing that he would likely be ROR’d or low-bailed with a court date? Either are quite likely.
There are *ALMOST ALWAYS* different options that still serve justice AND protect the public from these dangerous “illegal cigarette sales”.
There are situations that truly demand an escalation in the use of force. This Eric Garner arrest does not appear to be one of them.
I’ve worn it out, but I will keep saying it: We need fewer Barney Fife’s and more Andy Griffith’s.
He got into the kid’s face too quickly without having enough patience to get back-up and without the people skills and professionalism to keep the situation from getting out of hand. Once the confrontation began, where was the nightstick? Pepper spray? Mace? Taser? Any training he got in non-lethal force seems to have went out the window.
The blaring of the “get out of the street” over the car speaker system identifies Wilson as a cop that is really in love with the power a badge gives him. I know the species and they really need to be in another line of work. Glad he retired personally. Expect to see him at a mall, being a complete a-hole to your teenage kids next.
Not all.
Too many.
Big difference.
And there is a system in place that let’s these blue line specials keep rolling along. So tell me, do you really want Lon Horiuchi showing up in your town if one of your friends goes off the deep end and barricades himself in his own home with one of your kids there?
Brown and his bud were walking down the street.
What should he have done? Blown the horn? Yell out the window?
He had something few ordinary folks do--a PA system and he used it to tell them to get out of the street (rather than wind down the window and just yell).
I just don't see where that translates into someone who is power mad.
YMMV
If you can’t recognize the intimidation factor in an amplified voice blaring at you, I am not sure what I can say to you. There is really no way to sound reasonable and professional with your voice blaring through a PA. That interaction started from a “I have the power and you will dammed well OBEY IT PEON!” basis and went downhill from there. And you also seem to have ignored my original point of Brown being an idiot—which he was.
>>>>>That should solve the concerns of many on the Left and Right that believe the police are paid murderers.<<<<<
Maybe for some of the ignorant, but for me, it will just mean that the percentage of cops that really get off on having the power will now ALL be drawing a federal paycheck and not a local one.
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