Posted on 12/06/2014 11:04:43 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The white New York police officer who choke-held unarmed Eric Garner leading to his death had earlier been sued thrice for alleged misconduct. A UN Special Rapporteur has expressed concern over a "pattern of impunity," citing two grand juries' failure to indict officers involved in the deaths of two black civilians.
Last year, Darren Collins and Tommy Rice alleged in a federal court lawsuit that the officer, Daniel Pantaleo, and four other officers humiliated and unlawfully strip-searched them publicly after handcuffing them during their arrest on Staten Island the previous year, Detroit Free Press reports.
The cops, who were searching for illegal drugs, "pulled down the plaintiffs' pants and underwear, and touched and searched their genital areas, or stood by while this was done in their presence," the lawsuit alleged.
Charges against Collins and Rice were later dismissed and sealed.
In another case, Rylawn Walker alleged that Pantaleo, along with other cops, falsely arrested him on Staten Island for alleged marijuana possession two years ago even though he was not acting in a suspicious manner.
The case against the officer is pending, while the marijuana charges against Walker were dismissed and sealed.
Similarly, Kenneth Collins, of Staten Island, alleged in a lawsuit that Pantaleo and other police officers subjected him to "a degrading search of his private parts and genitals by the defendants" in February 2012.
The marijuana charges against Collins were dismissed and sealed the day after his arrest.
A nearly 3-minute video of the encounter between Garner and New York police officers posted on YouTube, shows Eric Garner screaming "I can't breathe, I can't breathe," repeatedly before falling silent as cops swarmed him when he refused to be handcuffed after expressing surprise that the officers were harassing him for trying to break up a fight.
However, the grand jury decided Wednesday not to indict Pantaleo. The decision came after months of testimonies were heard.
Less than two weeks earlier, a grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri, declined to bring charges against a white officer who fatally shot unarmed black teenager Michael Brown.
"I am concerned by the grand juries' decisions and the apparent conflicting evidence that exists relating to both incidents," UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues, Rita Izsak, said in a statement, adding that a trial process would ensure the evidence is considered in detail, according to BBC.
"The decisions leave many with legitimate concerns relating to a pattern of impunity when the victims of excessive use of force come from African-American or other minority communities," she went on to say.
There's a "longstanding prevalence of racial discrimination faced by African-Americans, particularly in relation to access to justice and discriminatory police practices," added Human rights expert Mireille Fanon-Mendes-France, head of the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent.
Meanwhile, protests continued Friday across the country.
Marches were held in Miami, Washington, D.C., Boston, New York, Chicago, Cleveland and Jacksonville, Florida, according to CNN.
Police stood nearby as the peaceful protests made their way down each thoroughfare.
In New York, protesters gave a list of demands which included all officers involved to be fired, for a special prosecutor to be appointed to investigate all complaints of excessive force and for the state Legislature to make a chokehold punishable by significant penalties to the media.
Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, earlier said he was "stunned" by the grand jury's decision and called on Christian churches to take a stand against injustice.
"I'm stunned speechless by this news. We hear a lot about the rule of law and rightly so. But a government that can choke a man to death on video for selling cigarettes is not a government living up to a biblical definition of justice or any recognizable definition of justice. We may not agree in this country on every particular case and situation, but it's high time we start listening to our African-American brothers and sisters in this country when they tell us they are experiencing a problem," Moore said in a statement Wednesday.
This guy can FO. He needs to go back to raping women in Africa with the rest of the UN Peacekeepers.
It was...
Lawfare is pretty common and it doesn’t appear that any of the suits were successful.
I can’t believe half a dozen police showed up to arrest a man selling single cigarettes. You will be lucky for 2 cops to show up after reporting domestic violence.
Guess the cops weren’t getting enough of a piece of the action.
Should have learned from Goodfellas, gotta pay off the cops.
They don’t rape women there. The head of the org. openly said they don’t bother with individuals over 14. And they always give them chocolate. They are paying customers, not rapists.
Get your facts straight.
So how did the law suits turn out? Perhaps I should sue Anugrah Kumar (has the Christian Post outsourced its writing to India?) so he could learn that anyone can file a suit; establishing the facts a bit more difficult.
I cant believe half a dozen police showed up to arrest a man selling single cigarettes. You will be lucky for 2 cops to show up after reporting domestic violence.
_________________________________
The reason is supported by what happened was likely to happen in that neighborhood where Garner would have been screwed by the locals. I’m sure Garner thought it fortunate to have the witnesses. Look at the Ferguson mess where there were no other cops to back Wilson up.
Ok, sued thrice. But are there cop-chasing lawyers lurking in the alleys, lawyers similar to the ambulance-chasing kind?
Its probably why they had a black female supervisor on scene despite the fact that the media has largely ignored that fact.
The media is in business to manipulate the simplest of minds.
“which included all officers involved to be fired,”
Including the Black female sergeant that was supervising the arrest?
Why don’t they mention that Eric Garner had been arrested some 20+ times, and many of the arrest were for exactly the same thing that he was doc g on that occasion? And that he was part of a bootleg cigarette ring that shook down and intimidated the local store owners?
Pantaloeo seems to have subjected the complainig druggies to a “degrading search” - in the company of other officers - which meant he was checking them for drugs in their genital region, which is frequently where they stash them. Sorry, lefties, this dog don’t hunt.
NYC, under Bloomie and Comrade Bill, has been fanatically determined to stamp out the sellers of “lonies”; hence the sending of a whole crew against one very large man who was a determined repeat seller and repeat violator. Not at all different from the IRS going after a high profile tax evader to encourage other people to pay their taxes. The cops here are being scapegoated for doing a by the book takedown of a man who was strenuously resisting an arrest they were ordered to perform by their communist rulers. The Draconian tax policies of Bloomie and Comrade Bill are what led to this death, not police misconduct.
not just politicians who want to make sure its taxed...i spoke with someone who’s a police officer in the area and he told me local merchants also call the police constantly complaining about guys selling cigarettes and other stuff on the streets because its thievery of their business...
One would think that the exorbitant legalized extortion fees collected at NYC bridges and tolls would satisfy the govt beast appetite. Nooooooo— gotta pick on an older dude selling ciggies for some additional protection of the beast’s revenues. Men in blue as revenue generators— we know the score especially in Rat controlled areas.
Maybe, but why would the author of this piece mention “other” officers if Pantaloeo was the primary target of the suit? Sounds to me like he was just one of the officers, not the the actual offender. But, it is important to the narrative to slant the story to make it appear so.
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.