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After the jury’s ruling in the shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown, it would have been shocking if it ruled anything contrary in the unlawful killing of Eric Garner by the NYPD. Below is a piece written by Pierce Morgan on MailOnline. Like he said; “If you or I choked Eric Garner to death in the street, we’d be charged with murder. Why not the cops?”
“I’ve watched the Eric Garner video a dozen times now; at normal speed, in slow motion, with sound, without sound. It doesn’t get any better the more you view it. In fact, it gets worse; a horrifying state-sponsored snuff movie playing out on the streets of New York.
Let’s not mince words; the NYPD unlawfully killed Eric Garner. No ifs, no buts, no mealy-mouthed excuses. They took an unarmed black man flogging dodgy cigarettes, bundled him to the ground and brutally choked him to death.
Repeatedly, the swarm of police officers grappling with him ignored those pleas.
Repeatedly, Daniel Pantaleo, the officer with his burly arm clamped tight around Garner’s neck, refused to loosen his grip.
And so Eric Garner died.
The cause of his death is incontrovertible; homicide.
New York City medical examiner’s official report confirmed this, revealing that Garner’s autopsy established he had been killed by ‘compression of the neck (choke hold), compression of chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police.’
They noted that Garner, 43 years old and 350lbs, had various contributory health issues including asthma, heart disease and obesity, but it was the choking and compression that killed him.
This is significant because the NYPD has banned, for more than 20 years, the use of choke holds, which it defines as any police officer manoeuvre that ‘puts pressure to the throat or windpipe, which may prevent or hinder breathing or reduce intake of air.’ Nobody watching the video can be in any doubt that this is indeed exactly what happened to Garner
Officer Pantaleo performs a choke hold, deliberately putting pressure on Garner’s throat or windpipe. And we know this hindered Garner’s breathing because Garner kept shouting that it was hindering his breathing. So the NYPD, led by Officer Pantaleo, killed him in direct violation of their own code of conduct, and in a manner which if you or I did it, would lead to serious criminal charges.
Yet the grand jury determined they did nothing wrong. It’s an outrageous decision, but perhaps the most outrageous aspect is that very few people seemed remotely surprised by it.
After the equally inexplicable Michael Brown grand jury ruling, there just seemed to be a general assumption that Eric Garner’s death would also be ruled perfectly OK by the U.S. justice system.
Justice?
This is not justice. This is a shameful farce that disgraces America.
The vast majority of them, I believe, are dedicated people who do their best to fulfill their duties in a professional, and where the occasion arises, compassionate manner.
It’s not easy being a cop, especially in America where there are 300 million guns in circulation, creating a permanent sense of understandable tension and paranoia about who may have one, and whether they will use it.
But as I watched Eric Garner quarreling with the NYPD, my mind went back to words of advice my father once gave me: ‘Never argue with a policeman.’
When I asked why, he replied: ‘Because you’ll never win.’
Eric Garner wasn’t a saint. He was a petty criminal with 30 arrests for misdemeanours dating back three decades. Most of these were in connection with the unlicensed selling of cigarettes.
But as with Michael Brown, who stole a handful of cigars, this is not a reason to kill him.
Garner’s wife and six children should not be left without a husband and father because he was trying to make a few illicit bucks selling nicotine, and then had a non-aggressive verbal disagreement with the police.
Nothing in his behaviour on that video excuses the sickening abuse of power we witnessed, yet there are many who will try and convince us otherwise.
Last night, I watched a former NYPD cop named Harry Houck vehemently defending the force’s actions on CNN. He denied that Garner had endured a choke hold. ‘I used to wrestle, that’s not a choke hold,’ he sneered. ‘He said he couldn’t breathe, if he was in a real chokehold, he would not even be able to say that.’
‘So you’re saying a real chokehold would have been worse?’ said the interviewer, Erin Burnett.
‘Yes,’ he replied.
Worse? WORSE? How does it get bloody worse than being choked to death, Mr Houck?
Houck was shaven-haired, mean-faced, arrogant and utterly uncompromising.
If the NYPD are all like him, then God help us.
Fortunately, they’re not.
New York is a far safer city than I’ve ever known it, thanks to the diligence and hard work of the NYPD over many years. But this grotesque incident is a deeply, ugly stain on that work, and on America’s race-tainted legal system.
In the last two weeks, we’ve seen a white cop go free after shooting dead an unarmed black teenager, two white cops gunning down a 12-year-old black boy armed with a toy gun in a park, and now this – another white cop evading indictment for killing an unarmed black man with his bare hands.
America’s black population is damn right to feel enraged by this sequence of events. And America’s white population should feel equally outraged on their behalf.
If you’re reluctant to share this outrage, I suggest you watch the Eric Garner video. Ten times if necessary.
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“I’ve watched the Eric Garner video a dozen times now; at normal speed, in slow motion, with sound, without sound. It doesn’t get any better the more you view it. In fact, it gets worse; a horrifying state-sponsored snuff movie playing out on the streets of New York.
Let’s not mince words; the NYPD unlawfully killed Eric Garner. No ifs, no buts, no mealy-mouthed excuses. They took an unarmed black man flogging dodgy cigarettes, bundled him to the ground and brutally choked him to death.
Repeatedly, he cried out: ‘I can’t breathe.’
Repeatedly, the swarm of police officers grappling with him ignored those pleas.
Repeatedly, Daniel Pantaleo, the officer with his burly arm clamped tight around Garner’s neck, refused to loosen his grip.
And so Eric Garner died.
The cause of his death is incontrovertible; homicide.
New York City medical examiner’s official report confirmed this, revealing that Garner’s autopsy established he had been killed by ‘compression of the neck (choke hold), compression of chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police.’
They noted that Garner, 43 years old and 350lbs, had various contributory health issues including asthma, heart disease and obesity, but it was the choking and compression that killed him.
This is significant because the NYPD has banned, for more than 20 years, the use of choke holds, which it defines as any police officer manoeuvre that ‘puts pressure to the throat or windpipe, which may prevent or hinder breathing or reduce intake of air.’ Nobody watching the video can be in any doubt that this is indeed exactly what happened to Garner
Yet the grand jury determined they did nothing wrong. It’s an outrageous decision, but perhaps the most outrageous aspect is that very few people seemed remotely surprised by it.
After the equally inexplicable Michael Brown grand jury ruling, there just seemed to be a general assumption that Eric Garner’s death would also be ruled perfectly OK by the U.S. justice system.
Justice?
This is not justice. This is a shameful farce that disgraces America.
I’m not anti-police, far from it.
The vast majority of them, I believe, are dedicated people who do their best to fulfill their duties in a professional, and where the occasion arises, compassionate manner.
It’s not easy being a cop, especially in America where there are 300 million guns in circulation, creating a permanent sense of understandable tension and paranoia about who may have one, and whether they will use it.
But as I watched Eric Garner quarreling with the NYPD, my mind went back to words of advice my father once gave me: ‘Never argue with a policeman.’
When I asked why, he replied: ‘Because you’ll never win.’
Eric Garner wasn’t a saint. He was a petty criminal with 30 arrests for misdemeanours dating back three decades. Most of these were in connection with the unlicensed selling of cigarettes.
But as with Michael Brown, who stole a handful of cigars, this is not a reason to kill him.
Garner’s wife and six children should not be left without a husband and father because he was trying to make a few illicit bucks selling nicotine, and then had a non-aggressive verbal disagreement with the police.
Nothing in his behaviour on that video excuses the sickening abuse of power we witnessed, yet there are many who will try and convince us otherwise.
‘So you’re saying a real chokehold would have been worse?’ said the interviewer, Erin Burnett.
‘Yes,’ he replied.
Worse? WORSE? How does it get bloody worse than being choked to death, Mr Houck?
Houck was shaven-haired, mean-faced, arrogant and utterly uncompromising.
I watched him spew his palpable nonsense, and shuddered.
If the NYPD are all like him, then God help us.
Fortunately, they’re not.
New York is a far safer city than I’ve ever known it, thanks to the diligence and hard work of the NYPD over many years. But this grotesque incident is a deeply, ugly stain on that work, and on America’s race-tainted legal system.
In the last two weeks, we’ve seen a white cop go free after shooting dead an unarmed black teenager, two white cops gunning down a 12-year-old black boy armed with a toy gun in a park, and now this – another white cop evading indictment for killing an unarmed black man with his bare hands.
America’s black population is damn right to feel enraged by this sequence of events. And America’s white population should feel equally outraged on their behalf.
If you’re reluctant to share this outrage, I suggest you watch the Eric Garner video. Ten times if necessary.
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