I agree with you so maybe I can take some of the flames aimed at you.
When there are that many cops simply point out to the man that he’s going to be arrested and he can do it the hard way or the easy way. But truthfully, I think it was over reacting for selling loose cigarettes.
Whether or not it was a choke hold or not is irrelevant. The man was saying “I can’t breath.” Hell, when he can’t breath, turn him loose.
The same with the kid shot in Ohio. It seems the cop that killed the kid had left another police department because he was considered unstable. Cleveland should pay out the nose for this.
You may not live in a big city, but when a block gets taken over by people doing petty illegal activities, it soon becomes unliveable for regular people, and it was actually the normal folk (who are mostly black, in this neighborhood) who had been asking for enforcement. Selling loosies, that is, individual cigarettes, attracts nothing but hoodie teenagers and bums, along with the people who provide them services: hookers, drug sellers, etc.
Garner had several other citations for this, as well as other arrests, so I don’t know why he freaked out on this particular occasion. As soon as they realized that he had a real problem and wasn’t just doing the usual complaining, they tried to help him, and the ambulance was there in 4 minutes.