He was selling 'loose cigarettes'


Your link says he had a heart attack while fighting with the cops. Hard to blame that on the cops. Or was that not the point of your post?
 
My original post was regarding how sad it is that he was being arrested for selling a cigarette. However, since then it's also been on the national news. Why? Because choke holds kill.
 
Had this been de-escalated by the subject following orders to stop resisting?
Ok, didn't hear orders from the cops.
 
BluesStringer said:
Your link says he had a heart attack while fighting with the cops. Hard to blame that on the cops. Or was that not the point of your post?
Click to expand...

he probably did have a condition that was exacerbated by the confrontation with the cops but despite that reality the libturd media is trying to spin into an abusive police/race issue.
 
gfrlaser said:
My original post was regarding how sad it is that he was being arrested for selling a cigarette. However, since then it's also been on the national news. Why? Because choke holds kill.
Click to expand...

Your link also said "VIDEO," but I didn't see a video or link to one while I was there. It wasn't until gunnerbob posted the video that I understood the issues involved. I still don't know where the report that he sold "a" cigarette came from, but even if that's true, it's also true that selling "loose cigarettes" is against the law in NYC, maybe in the whole state, I don't know. If one doesn't want contact with cops, don't do things that are illegal.

That said, I went back and looked again at the OP link, and I gotta question whether there ever was any "loose cigarettes" sold. The guy who shot the video was quoted in the piece saying...

Ramsey Orta, 22, shot the video posted by the newspaper. He told The Associated Press on Friday that he was sitting with Garner and discussing weekend plans before the confrontation with police. Garner had just broken up a fight between two other men when the police approached him, claiming they'd observed him selling loose cigarettes, Orta said.

"Before they even grabbed him, he told them he wasn't feeling good and that's why I pulled the camera out and started recording," said Orta, adding that Garner was asthmatic. "They could've just hopped out on the guys who were fighting, but they didn't bother to ask. They just jumped straight on him."
Click to expand...

The piece goes on to say that Garner had a long history of arrests with cops, some for selling cigs, but the point is, with a long history and them jumping straight to a charge that they already knew he'd been accused of before suggests a strong possibility that the charge was trumped up as a pretense to harass him. Besides knowing his arrest history though, they likely knew of his history as an asthmatic, which would make the choke-hold even more significant if it could be proven that the cop applying it had any knowledge of his health issues.

Choke-holds are also illegal by cops, and it doesn't matter what the probable cause or RAS was for the contact, they abused the man by applying one. They're illegal whether the guy is big or small, diabetic or fit as a fiddle, heart patient or the symbol of all that is healthy, so I more or less retract my first post here. The cops certainly did abuse their authority even though the contact and attempted arrest may have been legal.

apvbguy said:
he probably did have a condition that was exacerbated by the confrontation with the cops but despite that reality the libturd media is trying to spin into an abusive police/race issue.
Click to expand...

One doesn't have to be a libturd to believe that the cops were abusive according to their own agency policy, and from what I've heard subsequently on the news, according to the law. The choke-hold was clearly visible and sustained while the guy said multiple times that he couldn't breathe.

Both statements can be true:
1) The cops had legal authority to contact the citizen, and depending on the statute(s) involved, may have had legal authority to arrest him. (If selling cigs is a ticketable offense though, they didn't need to arrest him even though the contact was still legal.)
2) The cops exceeded their authority and at the very least abused the man.

Whether or not there was racial motivations behind the abuse is an open question, but the use of an illegal choke-hold is not. "Heart attack" could just as easily be a self-serving, but meaningless, "diagnosis" by the cops, of whom the OP link says, "Garner, 43, had a heart attack as he struggled with officers trying to arrest him on suspicion of selling untaxed cigarettes, police said." As a sort of after-thought, the story then says, "An autopsy was scheduled for Friday," so the heart attack part of the story originates with cops, not any medical findings.

I understand that Sharpton and other leftist race-pimps are now getting involved with this case. That will help nothing, but because of leftist involvement, that doesn't mean that the clear evidence of an illegal choke-hold being put on a man isn't fodder for severe criticism whether coming from leftists or Christian conservative constitutional originalists like myself. When "libturd" is used to excuse cop brutality, I'm more concerned about the people who use it than I am of the libturds.

Blues
 
Here's more than seven minutes of video after the take-down while Mr. Garner was laying lifeless on the ground. No resuscitation efforts by any cop or the ambulance personnel who show up towards the last minute or so of the video. Oh, and the cop who put the illegal choke-hold on Mr. Garner, can be seen smiling and waving directly at the camera at approximately 6:56.



 
We discussed this in my criminal justice class yesterday, my instructor was the first one to point out that choke holds are against LE protocol. Aside from the few meat-headed students who want to be cops to hurt people, the class was overwhelmingly against what happened... including the instructor. Bottom line, it doesn't matter what sort of prior arrests this man had... the actions of the NYC officers were reprehensible to say the least. Unfortunately, we live in a country where this behavior is 100% acceptable by LE organizations and is likely encouraged in a place like NYC. Not a single officer was able or willing to recognize the wrongfulness of the actions taken and tried to stop them from continuing... and cops wonder why citizens dislike them?
 
The victim had been caught selling cigarettes in the past. The cops assumed he was doing so again. One witness on ABC news said he was there and the guy never sold anyone a cigarette. He said the victim had just stopped two people from fighting. He resisted and they killed him for it.
 
BluesStringer said:
Your link says he had a heart attack while fighting with the cops. Hard to blame that on the cops. Or was that not the point of your post?
Click to expand...
A choke hold was used, despite the fact that NYPD has banned choke holds for 20 years. Cop should face charges for manslaughter or more severe.

All over selling something without the taxes being paid on it, and 5 cops to deal with it. Good to know that NYPD has cleaned up all serious crime, and can now focus on trivial nonsense like selling tax free cigarettes.
 
BC1 said:
The victim had been caught selling cigarettes in the past. The cops assumed he was doing so again. One witness on ABC news said he was there and the guy never sold anyone a cigarette. He said the victim had just stopped two people from fighting. He resisted and they killed him for it.
Click to expand...

If they had made an honest attempt to save him when he went unresponsive, I might feel more for those cops... but that they choked him unconscious and then took no action to help him afterwards... I don't know what laws might be in play, but they should be arrested and put away for killing him this way.
 
XD40scinNC said:
A choke hold was used, despite the fact that NYPD has banned choke holds for 20 years. Cop should face charges for manslaughter or more severe.

All over selling something without the taxes being paid on it, and 5 cops to deal with it. Good to know that NYPD has cleaned up all serious crime, and can now focus on trivial nonsense like selling tax free cigarettes.
Click to expand...

Yeah, there's something to be said for reading the rest of a thread to see if any further info was commented on, or previous posts retracted and/or remarks extended and clarified.
 
XD40scinNC said:
A choke hold was used, despite the fact that NYPD has banned choke holds for 20 years. Cop should face charges for manslaughter or more severe.

All over selling something without the taxes being paid on it, and 5 cops to deal with it. Good to know that NYPD has cleaned up all serious crime, and can now focus on trivial nonsense like selling tax free cigarettes.
Click to expand...
This is an ongoing problem in NYC.
 
HOMICIDE: Medical examiner says NYPD chokehold killed Staten Island dad Eric Garner - NY Daily News
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HOMICIDE: Medical examiner says NYPD chokehold killed Staten Island dad Eric Garner
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The 43-year-old dad died July 17 after cops on Staten Island attempted to arrest him for selling untaxed cigarettes. 'Thank God the truth is finally out,' the man's widow said Friday after the report was unveiled.
It was a homicide — and the chokehold killed him.
~
Eric Garner, the Staten Island dad who complained that he couldn’t breathe as he was subdued by cops, died from compression of the neck, the medical examiner said Friday.
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The autopsy also found that compressions to the chest and “prone positioning during physical restraint by police” killed Garner. The manner of death, according to the medical examiner, was homicide.
~
Medical examiner says chokehold by police officer caused death of NYC man; ruled homicide | Fox News
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Medical examiner says chokehold by police officer caused death of NYC man; ruled homicide
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NEW YORK – The medical examiner has ruled that the chokehold of a police officer on a New York City man last month caused his death.
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Medical examiner spokeswoman Julie Bolcer said Friday that Eric Garner's July 17 death has been ruled a homicide.
~




Bolcer says his death was caused by "the compression of his chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police." She says asthma and heart disease were contributing factors.
~
We may be seeing a department actually getting it right this time. Only time will tell as the union is going to fight this incident with everything they have. 120th Precinct where this took place has the 7 most sued officers in the department, GEE does that tell you anything about the standard that this precinct operates under, go figure.
 
gfrlaser said:
My original post was regarding how sad it is that he was being arrested for selling a cigarette. However, since then it's also been on the national news. Why? Because choke holds kill.
Click to expand...
Putting all the comments about choke holds and medical issues aside, why is it sad that he would be arrested for selling a cigarette? Or more accurately, when did it become sad for someone to be arrested for breaking the law? The drop in crime New York saw under Rudy Giuliani was primarily due to his orders to police to harass criminals on all criminal activities, not ignoring what might normally be considered a 'minor' crime. The resultant drop in crime overall was notable. Criminals no longer felt 'safe' on the streets of New York. But don't make the make the mistake of assuming selling untaxed cigarettes is a minor crime. It costs New York billions of dollars a year in lost tax revenues and God knows how much in law enforcement efforts. But whatever you think of the law or it's costs makes no difference. It's still the law, and it isn't "sad" to enforce a law.
 
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