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New York Grand Jury Does Not Indict Officer in Choking Death


icanthearyou

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Faith in humanity is something that I have little of. I would be curious to know what the racial and background makeup of that GJ was though, that would be very telling.

You are expressing a metric ton of faith in humanity in your belief that there just must have been something to make the grand jury not indict.

From CNN, "the grand jury was made up of 14 white and nine nonwhite members, according to law enforcement sources."

Ok, so 61% Caucasian and 39% non-Caucasian. It can be one of three things. Either the Caucasian group forced the non-Caucasian group to comply, there is a conspiracy against black people by others including their own race, or the GJ had legitimate evidence to not seek an indictment. Which seems most likely?
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The problem is, in NY you need at least 12 of the 23 members to vote in favor of indictment. So even if all the non-Caucasians were in agreement for indictment, it would go nowhere without swaying at least 3 white members.

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Faith in humanity is something that I have little of. I would be curious to know what the racial and background makeup of that GJ was though, that would be very telling.

You are expressing a metric ton of faith in humanity in your belief that there just must have been something to make the grand jury not indict.

From CNN, "the grand jury was made up of 14 white and nine nonwhite members, according to law enforcement sources."

Ok, so 61% Caucasian and 39% non-Caucasian. It can be one of three things. Either the Caucasian group forced the non-Caucasian group to comply, there is a conspiracy against black people by others including their own race, or the GJ had legitimate evidence to not seek an indictment. Which seems most likely?

Please don't think that I am trying to be argumentative. It may seem that way but, I only wish to discuss. Is this a possibility? Is it possible that prosecutors who normally work on the same side as the police should not handle cases involving alleged misconduct by the police? Is it possible that they may be understandably biased? Please keep in mind, I am not implying that they are corrupt and, would taint or withhold evidence but, perhaps their bias could influence the manner in which they present the evidence and thus, affect the grand jury's decision.

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The problem is, in NY you need at least 12 of the 23 members to vote in favor of indictment. So even if all the non-Caucasians were in agreement for indictment, it would go nowhere without swaying at least 3 white members.

So then, by law, the process worked. Has anybody spoken with the jury members to assess corruption within? To this point, it leaves us with a conspiracy. Even so, we still don't have all of the facts to vilify the officer.
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Faith in humanity is something that I have little of. I would be curious to know what the racial and background makeup of that GJ was though, that would be very telling.

You are expressing a metric ton of faith in humanity in your belief that there just must have been something to make the grand jury not indict.

From CNN, "the grand jury was made up of 14 white and nine nonwhite members, according to law enforcement sources."

Ok, so 61% Caucasian and 39% non-Caucasian. It can be one of three things. Either the Caucasian group forced the non-Caucasian group to comply, there is a conspiracy against black people by others including their own race, or the GJ had legitimate evidence to not seek an indictment. Which seems most likely?

Please don't think that I am trying to be argumentative. It may seem that way but, I only wish to discuss. Is this a possibility? Is it possible that prosecutors who normally work on the same side as the police should not handle cases involving alleged misconduct by the police? Is it possible that they may be understandably biased? Please keep in mind, I am not implying that they are corrupt and, would taint or withhold evidence but, perhaps their bias could influence the manner in which they present the evidence and thus, affect the grand jury's decision.

Very well could be. I wish the GJ members could be heard. Not sure if they are under a gag order or not, but it would be interesting to hear how the deliberations went.
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Maybe they looked at the video and saw it like me and Charles Barkley did. Guys forced to do their job who did not intend to hurt or kill anyone.

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I've done time in the Middle East and I've witnessed heavy handed police tactics first hand. We do not want to go there and I fear we are.

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Should have been negligent homicide. This isn't Ferguson, and the cop deserved a trial.

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I've done time in the Middle East and I've witnessed heavy handed police tactics first hand. We do not want to go there and I fear we are.

Part of that is our own doing. We (citizens) have allowed our nation to be raped by elitists and ideological thugs. Doesn't make it right, but the blame can be shared in many ways.

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If Eric Garner Were WhiteHis death would be a Tea Party crusade. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/what-if-eric-garner-had-been-white/383420/

Imagine that Eric Garner had been white. Imagine that he’d been living in Idaho. Imagine that the law-enforcement officers who killed him had been federal agents.

His death would be a Tea Party crusade.

Think about it. The police hassled Garner because he had a history of selling untaxed cigarettes. It’s the kind of big-government intrusion that drives Tea Partiers nuts. One of the events that helped launch the Tea Party, in fact, came in January 2009, when activists from Young Americans for Liberty donned American Indian garb to protest the soda taxes proposed by then-New York Governor David Patterson.

Garner responded to being hassled with a statement of “don’t tread on me” anti-government defiance: “I was just minding my own business. Every time you see me you want to mess with me. I’m tired of it. It stops today!”

A tussle ensued. The police put Garner in a chokehold, and he died.

The Garner case bears some resemblance to that of Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who this spring prevented Bureau of Land Management agents from impounding his cattle after he refused to pay government grazing fees. Like Garner, Bundy was engaged in a form of commerce he believed the government should not tax. Like Garner, Bundy resisted law enforcement’s efforts to punish him for it. For many conservatives, this made Bundy a hero and the government that sought to penalize him a tyranny. Right-wing activists, including some Republican legislators, flocked to Bundy’s ranch as he stared down federal agents, and Nevada Senator Dean Heller dubbed these vigilantes “patriots.” “At the heart of this issue,” declared Fox’s Sean Hannity, is “my belief that our government is simply out of control.” Ted Cruz called the Bundy affair “the unfortunate and tragic culmination of the path that President Obama has set the federal government on” in which “we have seen our constitutional liberties eroded.”

To imagine how Fox News would be reacting right now had Garner been white, rural, and facing the feds, you need only imagine how it would have reacted had a BLM agent shot Bundy dead.

But Fox and the rest of the pro-Tea Party right aren’t reacting that way. Yes, some conservative pundits—noting the video that shows Garner being choked to death—have condemned the grand jury’s decision not to indict the police officer who killed him. Rand Paul has denounced the high cigarette taxes that Garner flouted.

Overall, however, conservatives have responded to the Garner case with a yawn. At 8 p.m. Wednesday night, hours after the decision had been announced, at a time when the Garner case dominated the websites of MSNBC and CNN, the top story on FoxNews.com was about Texas suing President Obama over immigration. (Later on that evening, FoxNews.com made its top story, you guessed it, Benghazi. As of Thursday morning, the Garner decision leads the site.) There was virtually nothing about the grand jury decision on the websites of National Review or The Weekly Standard. Sarah Palin did not post anything about it on her Facebook page. For its part, TeaParty.org posted 14 articles to its Facebook page between 8 and 10 p.m. Many of them discussed Obama’s immigration action; some concerned the violence in Ferguson; one was about the empty seats at Hillary Clinton’s Georgetown speech. None mentioned Eric Garner.

One prominent conservative who did mention the case was Charles Krauthammer, who called the grand jury’s decision “incomprehensible” but slammed President Obama’s response for “making the implication … that it was about race.” (Obama said, “This is an American problem when anybody in this country is not being treated equally under the law.”)

But the right’s largely indifferent response illustrates just how much the Garner case really is about race. Had Eric Garner been a rural white man with a cowboy hat killed by federal agents, instead of a large black man choked to death by the NYPD, his face would be on a Ted Cruz for President poster by now.

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If Mr. Garner had been white you would have gotten a 5 second mention on the back end of the newscast and you know it.

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Maybe they looked at the video and saw it like me and Charles Barkley did. Guys forced to do their job who did not intend to hurt or kill anyone.

You keep harping on intent. Do you truly not understand negligence or recklessness?

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Again, no one here knows what this man's history with LE is, and no one here knows what happened before this little video was shot. Kinda funny how you vilify this officer without all the facts, then accuse others of being quick to jump to conclusions. Pretty hypocritical if you ask me. But, "Mothers shouldn't have to be afraid of their sons dying when they rob stores" right? SMH.

How about explaining the relevance of that and how it justifies what the video shows.

Of which part, the part in quotes?

No, the mans history with LE and whatever happened prior to the video.

What's the point of having video evidence if you are simply going to dismiss it based on (irrelevant) supposition?

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Ok, you be a lawmaker for a minute. so if a lawbreaker does not wish to comply, what is your idea of how to proceed. (my point is the crime is irrelevant)

The crime is relevant. Police are taught to treat situations differently based on the circumstances. You don't throw a non-compliant jaywalker to the the ground when he disobeys an order, but you might do that to a guy that just committed armed robbery or a man who was beating the s*** out of his woman in a domestic disturbance call.

The other thing you take into account is whether the person is armed and who really has the upper hand. There were at least 6 officers surrounding an unarmed man who was not violent. He was frustrated but not violent. Realize there isn't any rush here. Let cooler heads prevail. Did these guys have a plane to catch or something that they couldn't do this more peacefully?

Use something called proportionality. And common sense. And for God's sake when a man is telling you he can't breathe, don't keep the chokehold on him and double down by half of you piling on top of him and pressing his neck to the concrete.

i agree with the last paragraph. He was not threatening anyone but my point that the crime dont matter is once you have decided to make an arrest you make the arrest. you cant just let the difficulty of the arrest make you decide to just leave the suspect alone. they maybe could have talked him down and maybe not. but i think with 6 officers you take him down and get it over with without letting a mob of spectators pile up around the scene. He died unfortunately. the force alone did not cause it. his health was bad already. he could have easily prevented it.

I find it remarkable that you would commit such rationalization to writing.

It makes me want to file it away for use in some future incident like the Arizona/Bundy incident.

do you remember my position on cliven bundy?

Doesn't matter. I wouldn't explain your irrational position on this incident. You act as if LEOs cannot make mistakes simply because they are LEOs.

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Maybe they looked at the video and saw it like me and Charles Barkley did. Guys forced to do their job who did not intend to hurt or kill anyone.

You keep harping on intent. Do you truly not understand negligence or recklessness?

yes and Mr garner was negligent in compliance with authorities. No guns. Flashlights, police batons,tazers.pepper spray. Just physical force was used. It is unfortunate he couldn't simply surrender. No crime was committed by the cops. It could be a learning point for them and potential suspects as well.
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You believe that it's a BS fallback because you are convicted by it.

I'm not "convicted" by a thing you've said. Save your penetrating pop psychology musings for people who frequent fortune tellers and palm readers.

And again, the grand jury saw something that made them believe that this officer didn't deserve to be brought to trial. End of story. THEY SAW SOMETHING THAT YOU DID NOT.

They didn't see anything more. You saw what happened. They saw what happened. The police officers and police union have spoken on this and aside from trying to say it wasn't a chokehold have offered zilch in terms of anything before the video starts that would justify their level of force. Nothing. And you know as well as I do that if there were such extenuating circumstances, we all would have heard about them. The reason you haven't is because they don't exist.

Crap, if we want to base this stuff on a short video, then Michael Brown, based on a short video that I saw, was a thug, militant punk criminal that, if the store owner had had a weapon, would have been absolutely justified in shooting and killing him.

And I think that in the Brown case, that video was a piece that undermined his friend's "compliant, gentle giant" story. But this video is far more complete than anything we had in the Brown case. The situations really aren't comparable except as a study in contrasts.

Did the cops use excessive force in the short video against Garner? Maybe so, but the grand jury decided against it. Does that make them idiots like you called them? No.

Not "maybe so", yes, most definitely. And yes, they are idiots. That's being more kind than calling them racists. Being stupid at least doesn't carry with it bad motives.

Wow, what a lunatic rant of someone having all the facts! Were you on the GJ? No? Then you are clueless as to what they saw. :laugh:

They saw the same video we saw.

Grand Juries are basically "led" to their conclusions by the prosecuting attorney. There is no real standard for the way the PA presents the case. Normally, the PA wants to obtain an indictment.

It's why...

"Former New York state Chief Judge Sol Wachtler famously remarked that a prosecutor could persuade a grand jury to “indict a ham sandwich.” The data suggests he was barely exaggerating:

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. attorneys prosecuted 162,000 federal cases in 2010, the most recent year for which we have data. Grand juries declined to return an indictment in 11 of them."

Like Titan said, this grand jury was either stupid or irresponsibly compliant to a PA who was trying to protect the LEO.

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Maybe they looked at the video and saw it like me and Charles Barkley did. Guys forced to do their job who did not intend to hurt or kill anyone.

You keep harping on intent. Do you truly not understand negligence or recklessness?

yes and Mr garner was negligent in compliance with authorities. No guns. Flashlights, police batons,tazers.pepper spray. Just physical force was used. It is unfortunate he couldn't simply surrender. No crime was committed by the cops. It could be a learning point for them and potential suspects as well.

I suspect you'd feel differently if it happened to your child.

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Maybe they looked at the video and saw it like me and Charles Barkley did. Guys forced to do their job who did not intend to hurt or kill anyone.

First, I am not aware that Barkley has commented on this incident.

More importantly, there is no requirement of "intent" for the appropriate charges. A mistake in judgment and action is sufficient.

It's called accountability. And given their powers, accountability is something all LEOs should be held to, regardless of how difficult their job is. Not everyone can be a good cop.

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