While you give an excellent overview, you miss a couple of key things. First, it was reported by Mr. Garner’s friends that he couldn’t walk a single block without stopping and sitting down. Second, it was alleged he was either in a fight or had stopped a fight, thus in some heightened state of respiration etc. Third, he was not assaulted. When they went to arrest him (and he was on parole), he said “not today,” a verbal indication he was resisting/refusing arrest. Fourth, he pushed the hands of the police away, which may constitute assault on his part. Fifth, due to resistance, he was pulled to the pavement, which is not assault. Sixth, within 3 seconds of first saying “I can’t breathe,” the officer completely removed himself from Mr. Garner. EMS was called immediately after he said “I can’t breathe. Approximately 3 minutes later, EMS arrives, he is breathing, conscious, and speaking. He remained breathing, conscious, and speaking until he entered the ambulance. By this time, it had been approximately 11 minutes since the arrest was effected. Finally, Mr. Garner expired, in the ambulance, while having an heart attack. The total amount of time the officer had any part of his body touching the head or neck area was 17 seconds. Further, no one was sitting on top of him within seconds of him first saying “I can’t breathe.”
I think maybe having a long conversation with him may have resulted in compliance, but that is a guess. When 5 men surround you it is, by definition, confrontational, and that is what I felt Mr. Garner thought. Yes, he resisted arrest. Once the takedown (assault) was terminated, I believe the hypoxia of the myocardium had done irreversible damange and an acute MI was developing (that would not show up at post). Had this been J.J. Watt his cardiopulmonary reserve would have not had any trouble physiologically tolerating the stresses which Mr.Garner endured. As I said, I suspect he was normally operating on a minimal margin of a O2 saturation of 91-92%. This means any significant stress, adrenergic, physiological, physical, infectious, could have been more than he could have tolerated (just an opinion). But there seems to be the need for reasonableness to determine probably what caused death 11 minutes after the confrontation began.
Sitting on top of him.........well I saw a number of men who were intermittently on his abdomen/chest area. The officer with his forearm beneath chin also restricted airflow.