Posted on 12/03/2014 6:28:48 PM PST by Biggirl
So, in deciding whether a grand jury should have indicted Garner, we should assess the following questions:
1.Was there any intent by the officers to kill Garner? That would certainly be an uphill case to make, as the grand jury likely found.
2.Did the “chokehold” kill Garner, or did his pre-existing health conditions kill him? If Garner had otherwise been healthy, would he have died from use of the “chokehold”?
3.If not, would use of the “chokehold” have been reckless?
4.Was the use of the “chokehold” reasonable use of force rather than excessive use of force? Was the “chokehold” necessary to subdue him?
The law that led to this confrontation was pressed forward by former New York Mayor Michael Nanny Bloomberg; Garner had been arrested some eight times for selling untaxed cigarettes.
Were the actions of the police reasonable in light of the assumed infraction, ie selling untaxed cigarettes? Clear answer is NO.
Did the actions of the police contribute to his death? Clear answer is YES.
We it murder? NO.
Negligent homicide? YES.
However, the prosecutor recognized that if he/she was to go aggressively after the officers involved, the wrath of the police would make the prosecutors job almost impossible. Thus the prosecutor did not push for an indictment, regardless of what was reported. Just the way things work.
Did the actions of Garner contribute to his death? Yes.
Did the actions of Brown contribute to his death? Yes
Did the actions of Trayvon contribute to his death? Yes.
“Was there any intent by the officers to kill Garner? “
Not necessary for manslaughter or negligent homicide.
“Did the “chokehold” kill Garner, or did his pre-existing health conditions kill him? “
also not necessary. The Coroner ruled the decedent died from a injuries caused by the cops.
“If not, would use of the “chokehold” have been reckless?”
The use of that hold is proscribed by the NYC PD. The cop violated published procedure. End of story.
“Was the use of the “chokehold” reasonable use of force rather than excessive use of force?”
NYC PD policy already covers this. See above.
Anything but selling ciggs. That is the worse, most horrible, dastardly thing a human being could possibly do. The death sentence via choking is warranted. /s/
The linked article states that Garner died at the scene. I’ve also read that he died later, at an ER. I’m not sure which is true.
Strange.
In amongst all these facts and discussion, the thought that keeps going round and round in my head:
How may states is it legal to sell marijuana, and yet selling individual cigarettes is illegal.
Man the things going on in this country make my head spin.
I think there was probable cause for some form of manslaughter. The office has him in his custody. He employed a prohibited choke hold. The finding in his death had already been found to not from natural causes by the coroner. The Grand Jury had probable cause.
A jury could have found that there was not enough proof for manslaughter based upon the wording of the law but it was not proper action by the officer and a man died.
Did the officer kill the man recklessly-yes
Was it racism-no
The man is dead because that cop killed him, surely there is some sort of penalty for doing that.
So let’s just throw out some of these old fashioned ideas like the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, double jeopardy, grand jury, on and on.
Maybe he died at the scene, but was officially pronounced dead in the ER by a doctor?
“The Coroner ruled the decedent died from a injuries caused by the cops.”
Here is what the medical examiner actually stated: “On August 1, 2014, city medical examiners concluded that Garner was killed by neck compression from the chokehold along with “the compression of his chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police”. Asthma, heart disease and obesity were contributing factors.”
You might want to read more about what a true choke hold is here:
http://www.leelofland.com/wordpress/eric-garner-death-by-chokehold-maybe-not/
In the cases of O.J., Martin, Brown and now Garner, black people as a group overwhelmingly side with skin color, regardless of facts.
On that basis alone, I side with the white guy. I’ve read nothing about this case until now.
White guy - not guilty.
If blacks wanted to riot about this, I MIGHT be okay with it...
Selling UNTAXED cigs is worse.
That pretty much describes the killing of the man on the sidewalk.
I think a killing of that sort should result in some sort of penalty, if you don’t, then you shouldn’t be worrying much about the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.
A few years back there was an out of state group pushing some draconian measures here in Louisiana. Some of their agit-prop had some statistics I thought were questionable, particularly when they presented a table of "tobacco related deaths" by age group. I saw a handful of surprisingly young people dying of tobacco related deaths so I did some digging into where the stats came from, and it turns out they had died in a house fire the fire marshal had determined the cause to be a cigarette.
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