Uh no. If someone has you in choke hold you can’t say ANYTHING.
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If a 5 year old boy has you in a choke hold, will you be able to say anything?
How about a 10 year old? 15 year old? 20 year old?
They could all put you in a choke hold with varying degrees of effect on your speech.
In this situation we are talking about a very large man being choked by someone almost half his size so it’s an apt analogy...although I’m all but certain anyone here could admit it.
They can put you in a choke hold. But if you can talk, the hold isn’t effective and you aren’t actually being choked. Your neck is just being squeezed.
From what I can see in the video, at no point while Garner was saying that he couldn't breathe, did the cop have his arm around Garner's neck.
It was after the cop released the neck hold and while the cop was pinning Garner's face down with his knee for 10 seconds, that Garner said that he couldn't breathe.
The cop released his knee as soon as Garner was cuffed.
It appears that the cop was following normal procedures. I would guess that perps who often resist arrest complain when they are pinned and in many cases they falsely complain. I would guess that the cop was following his training that dictates that you keep the perp pinned until after he is cuffed. I would guess that there is no procedure to unpin a 400 pound, asthmatic, walking heart attack when he starts complaining about physical distress.
I would not have indicted the cop based on those 10 seconds.