I think I've stated 3 times in this thread and others that the choke hold was incorrect and the officer is responsible. I don't know what you're getting at.

You all look alike to me :P

If you think he should have been indicted than cool, my post is misdirected, but it might serve to let me make the point in a more direct way, so it was all intentional and rhetorically sound on my part. I'm like a genius

Cops != civilians.

When you give a physical reaction to being arrested, then you are resisting arrest. You could comply and give a verbal argument, which usually winds up fine. You start wrestling with a cop, you're an idiot.

This is not what happened. The cop didn't "strangle the life out of that person". He applied a choke hold during a takedown. Garner wound up dying. It's a shame.

Does a police officer have to announce you're under arrest before they grab you? I'm unsure, but I don't think that's a requirement.

No. I've seen it happen many times. You sound like someone who has never seen anyone arrested or been arrested before. If that's the case, good for you, but it doesn't make your argument any more valid.

No one cares what you think should have been done. They grabbed the dude and were trying to arrest him. Whether you believe it should have been announced or warned or whatever doesn't mean anything.

Once again, there is a time and a place for all that. He's upset, but that is irrelevant. All of these silly arguments don't mean anything. It doesn't matter if he's upset. It doesn't matter if he's having a bad day, if his feet hurt, or if he feels as if he's being treated in a bad way. He was being placed under arrest and resisted, so they took him down. That's it. If he'd have chosen to react differently, he wouldn't have gotten choked.

Most people, when getting arrested, do not resist. They may have a vocally disagree when they are being arrested but they usually don't pull away and start thrashing. There is a good reason for that.

Reality is the NYPD or whatever department this is will be paying out a huge settlement.


It would if I was sitting on a jury

Like, OK Wil, we can call it a chokehold if that makes you feel better, but man, "It's a shame" is what I say when when the delivery guy gets my order wrong. A cop choking a man to death on the street goes a little beyond "it's a shame" and into "he ****ing killed that guy" territory.

All I was saying is that when an officer places you under arrested and you jerk away from him more than once, procedure is to bring you down forcibly but as safely as possible. I don't even really feel he needed to be arrested for that crime, just told to move on, but there's obviously a history with him and the dept, so I won't speculate too much on whether the arrest was warranted.

However, once you are placed under arrest, you go. You don't run, you don't snatch your hands away and you definitely don't start swinging. You go and you call your lawyer or someone to bail you out. If you snatch your hands away, procedure is to take you down as safely as possible and I agree with that. I even agree with using a chokehold, just not the one used by the officer because those are dangerous. But as ALL chokeholds are banned by the dept, using one should get you at a minimum fired and in this case indicted.
What people don't realize is that when they see 5 officers jump on a guy and bring him down, that is much safer for him than if 1 or 2 officers try to bring him down because it's much more likely someone gets seriously injured in that exchange. The same reason I personally resort to blood choke first if it presents itself, because when done correctly it's the safest way to remove an unruly person with the lowest risk to yourself. If you're using an air choke this doesn't count as being done correctly because air chokes, by their nature, are fairly dangerous.
But everyone that keeps saying the officers held him down and choked him to death are just flat out incorrect and the video shows that.

I guess the Grand Jury did indict the man who videotaped the incident

There's not a chance of this happening. They can't sue the officer because once the GJ fails to indict, the officer can't be sued because he was "acting in the scope of his job" something that was held up by the GJ verdict. The dept will not settle because the case couldn't even get past the GJ so they aren't worried about losing to a real jury and they aren't worried about bad publicity because everyone and their mom knows about the case and has already formed an opinion.

This is the silliest argument in the entire thread. Complying with what is asked of you is not "bootlicking". It's realizing the situation for what it is. Being confronted by multiple police officers is not the same as making an argument in a court of law. You can argue and make points until you're blue in the face while in a debate or in court. To do that to a police officer is pure stupidity. They aren't judges and they aren't there to debate. They are there to handle the current situation, period. If you have an issue with it you move it to another forum.

I have philosophical problems with many things in this country. Whether that's police authority, the TSA or the NSA, I dislike all of them. But I play ball. When I'm in an airport I do what is asked of me to get through the process. When I'm confront by a cop I do what is asked of me to go on with my day.

Garner simply reacted in a bad way. He doesn't realize the situation he's in. He's a very large person who is in a position where he's dealing with multiple police officers who could be viewing him as a threat, on top of being upset and belligerent.

The last few times I got pulled over I immediately pulled over and rolled down my windows. When an officer walked up, glanced around the car, and asked me why I did that I simply told him that I have some friends who are cops and I know they don't like walking up to a car with tinted windows. He thanked me, took my info, ran it, and told me to have a nice day and fully stop at the stop sign next time. Is that bootlicking, or is it simply realizing the situation for what it is and trying to get it over with as soon as possible?

The arguments you guys are making are beyond ridiculous. I firmly believe 99% of you would never react the way Garner did when being arrested, yet you all fall over each other to defend him when he made the decision to resist arrest.

I think I've already posted the argument for an indictment about as strongly as I'm able, so I'm not going to pursue this much farther, but what you are saying makes no sense to me.

I didn't make up some random opinion about what is relevant. I quoted the US DOJ which cites a supreme court decision about what constitutes reasonable use of force. I also cited the legal definition of 2nd degree manslaughter in NY. In neither case does the argument or the definitions hinge on whether or not anyone was upset. The arguments hinge on

a) the fact that choke-holds are prohibited
b) the definition of reasonable force
c) the definition of 2nd degree manslaughter

These things are a matter of policy and law, respectively. They are not a matter of opinion. They are not silly or irrelevant. Your description of use of force:

does not match the DOJ's, backed up by the Supreme Court and the 4th amendment. Do you disagree?

You so constantly off base with how you are characterizing everyone else's arguments. You don't have to "defend him" to claim that what he did wasn't worthy of the response that killed him.

David, I would be happy to listen to whatever black cops might have to say about their reactions to the perceptions from the black community that they often feel targeted for harassment by the police.

However, most non-racists would try to avoid projecting onto black police officers how these individuals would "tend to feel about these issues." Although I know that it's standard operating procedure in SMP to merrily and patronizingly ponder these types of issues, here in Politics we tend to take racism more seriously.

If the officer choked him and kept applying the choke until the man was unresponsive and passed out, I'd agree with you. That is not what happened in this case and you're being purposefully misleading in your statement. He got choked and due to other complications he died. That's a shame.

Here's an example of a choke I don't agree with. Skip to the 50 second mark to see the choke the bouncer applied. I think it was unnecessary and he held the choke too long. If the guy would have died I'd say the bouncer would most likely be at fault because he held it until the dude stopped moving. This is drastically different than what the police officer did. This is the kind of **** that happens on the street when you get into confrontations with people. You can either be cool or not. When you choose not to be cool, anything can happen.

The funny part is every single person in this thread knows this.

Obviously the big problem is B. What is reasonable force? The guy was 350. They took him down. What you may think is reasonable and another think is reasonable may be different due to interpretation, and that's where we have a problem.

I never said that complying with an officer is boot licking. You are in this thread coming up with "he moved his hand" excuses where it's fine for a police officer to choke a guy out, kill him, and not even face punishment. That is textbook boot licking.

I'm not sure if you already addressed it or not but why isn't A important? The fact that choke-holds are banned is paramount for me.

Once again, misleading statements. "He moved his hand" isn't what happened. He forcefully pried his hands away from the officer not once, but multiple times. He also waved his hands around and said "don't touch me, don't touch me".

If a cop grabs my hand and I'm really not aware of what's happening and just jerk my hand away then turn around and see whats going on, I'll relax and then comply and let him arrest me. That's what a reasonable person does. I wouldn't start thrashing around and start saying "don't touch me".

Does this sound unreasonable?

I posted a list of guidelines that the federal government considers to be objective criteria for the proper use of force in making an arrest, along with an argument about why the circumstances in this case, considered in the context of those guidelines, do not justify the amount of force used.

You are welcome to take issue with any specific point I made, but "When you choose not to be cool, anything can happen." is not a very good argument. Nor is "They took him down. That's it". In fact, they aren't arguments at all. You're just waving your hands around claiming that cops arrest people and the burden is entirely on the arrestee to avoid physical harm. But that is plainly false. Police officers bear a legal burden to justify that their use of force is appropriate.

It may be for you, but obviously for others it's not, or this guy would have been indicted. There is a real problem with how this is being interpreted. Is the choke hold a criminal act in all cases, or does it depend on the situation? If the law is that any chokehold applied, no matter what the circumstances, is a criminal act, then you are 100% correct and I'm more than willing to admit that.

And what I'm saying is that presumably a group of reasonable people looked at the evidence and decided not the indict. If it's so obvious then why wasn't the officer indicted? We have video and audio. If you are right, then there is no discussion.

I was asking about you, not "others". Is it important to you that the choke hold is banned?

Your definition of "thrashing" is ridiculous. He turns around, says "please don't touch me", and puts his hands up in the air very non-violently. He's a threat to no one at that point. He is basically following your flow chart except he doesn't get a chance to finish the "I'll relax" step and move on to "comply" in the 2 seconds before he is thrown into a choke hold.

There is no state law against choking someone specifically. It's not a crime in the sense that you are asking about. Obviously assault is a crime, but you are asking about choking specifically.

There is a police policy that says choke-holds should not be used because they are unnecessarily life-threatening. There is also a state law that says it is unlawful to act recklessly in a way that leads directly to someone dying.

Consider:

1) Do you agree that use of force by the police in making an arrest requires justification and is subject to limitations?

2) Do you agree that using a choke-hold to make an arrest requires more justification than making an arrest by other means, given that choke-holds are forbidden by the department and are more dangerous?

3) Do you agree that it is reckless to use a choke-hold to make an arrest if the circumstances don't warrant the heightened level of force being applied?

4) Do you think the circumstances warrant an increased level of force sufficient to justify using a choke-hold?

These are the questions that I would ask you to consider. I don't think it's necessary to consider the Grand Jury decision, you can evaluate these questions using the information that is available. Pretend you are the Grand Jury and decide for yourself.

We can agree that it is at least possible that there is some other unknown information that would justify the actual Grand Jury result if we disagree with it. But even if so, it's highly unlikely that those reasons would have anything to do with the arguments you've made. They would involve some specific detail which isn't in the video for some reason, not your general arguments about how the police arrest people.

I'm asking you to look at the law, police policy, and the video and consider whether or not there is probable cause to believe a crime was committed.