Breaking news: Grand Jury Said to Bring No Charges in Staten Island Chokehold Death of Eric Garner

[telemann.livejournal.com]

A Staten Island grand jury has voted not to bring criminal charges against the white New York City police officer at the center of the Eric Garner case, a person briefed on the matter said Wednesday. The decision was reached on Wednesday after months of testimony including from the officer, Daniel Pantaleo, who used a chokehold to restrain Mr. Garner, who died after a confrontation. It came less than two weeks after a grand jury in Ferguson, Mo., declined to bring charges against a white officer who fatally shot an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown.
For days, the New York City Police Department has been readying for a new round of protests, which began in the city after the Ferguson decision and which were expected to continue and possibly grow if the grand jury declined to bring charges against the officer.

Source

Video of the entire incident made this such a clear and obvious case for SOME charges. For those not familiar with the case, Garner was stopped for selling "onesies" (that's a single cigarette, usually sold for a dollar). The corner ruled Gardner's death a homicide.

Comments

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

Our juries of upstanding citizens are really giving the police absolute power, at least when dealing with people of color. It's just not getting better.

[planet-x-zero.livejournal.com]

I cannot fucking believe this shit. You can't watch this and not at least think negligent homicide.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Me either.

I have overheard some pro-police types (they're usually very anti Obama, anti Bill de Blassio) here in Brooklyn, state that sentiment.

[planet-x-zero.livejournal.com]

I'm in Brooklyn too. I really thought (or hoped) that NYC would set the right example. Parts of Staten Island might as well be Texas.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

As a native of Virginia, I'm sorry to say that some of the things I've heard come out of Staten Islanders mouths would put some Southern racists to shame; I'm sorry to say that. And as a Roman Catholic, I never encountered so much antisemitism in my life as I have here in Brooklyn (it's usually from Russians and Ukrainians). That's not representative of entire groups of people, and it's not unique either, but still, I found it pretty shocking, and I was not expecting it.

[hurleyman.livejournal.com]

I was offered a job in both SI and Richmond....liberal bias made me choose the VA option--funny how that works out....given that I'm currently in Philadelphia, the move has me VERY nervous, as I tend to be a bit outspoken in regards to politics/social issues, but from what I've heard Richmond isn't far off from Philly...I hope I'm not wrong...

[telemann.livejournal.com]

You'll like Richmond. It's a blue city.

Very friendly folks, lower costs of living generally, and Virginia is beautiful. Very green. I knew a LJ friend, who was born and raised in NYC and he was having a difficult time with the friendliness down in Richmond, which is odd because most people I know who move South rate that as a definite plus.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Never discount the ability of shitheads to be shitheads:

But, here is the one piece of information that is missing from many of the stories. (http://www.tpnn.com/2014/12/05/the-important-tidbit-about-the-eric-garner-case-the-media-and-race-hustlers-dont-want-you-to-know/)

That’s just the biggest single distortion in all the talk about the Eric Garner case, in which the public has been misinformed and misled from the start. (http://nypost.com/2014/08/14/not-a-chokehold-truth-of-the-garner-arrest/)

[planet-x-zero.livejournal.com]

I don't find either of these particularly compelling. I don't believe it will hold up federally as racially motivated, but it doesn't discount the overall pattern of excessive force by police against black males.

The second op-ed is in the NY Post which is the NY FOX Post, just in case the perspective matters. I don't doubt that the technical nature of the choke hold could be disputed; however, I don't believe the excessive force is in anyway in doubt.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

I'm just saying that the case is disputable when you're looking for any reason at all to dispute it. Like the jackwits bringing up the history of Tamir Rice's parents and neighborhood as ways to excuse HIS killing.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

That'll send a message to anyone selling cigarettes on the street.

And really, don't put your kid to bed (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/10/joseph-weekley-mistrial-verdict_n_5965362.html).

(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/10/joseph-weekley-mistrial-verdict_n_5965362.html)

[hindustar.livejournal.com]

Heartbreaking.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Strait up snuff video.

[interdictor.livejournal.com]

They're the armed guards for the political class. Of course they're mostly above the law.

[interdictor.livejournal.com]

Well, I guess we've all been proved wrong. Some of you thought cameras on cops were the answer. I thought that cameras, combined with disarming the cops, was a more comprehensive answer. Looks like even without using weapons and with having cameras trained on them, cops still get away with murder.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

I just can't even with this. We're looking at a culture with gigantic inertia, that seems almost impossible to change, but shining the apparatus of state surveillance back on itself seemed like (hell, SHOULD have been) a good way to at least impart a little bit of a course correction, leading to an eventually different course. Seemed like a win-win: protect the good cops, highlight the bad ones, rebuild trust: and addressing the abuse of state authority among the marginalized should have reaped huge dividends across the board in terms of said abuses for everyone. Maybe it wasn't a panacea, but it was a good place to start. It was something practical, something that might actually do something, to let us stop allowing perfect to be the enemy of good.

And then it doesn't even fucking matter anyway. Fucking fuck it all.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Some police officers are using the "well you know, the video isn't the entire picture" excuse. The police officers union here in NYC has said as much regarding this case. But yeah this is an instance I agree with you-- I would believed video tape of an incident would make this a slam dunk case. There was a case where NYC cops did beat up a guy- they followed him into his own apartment and then proceeded to beat the living shit out of him. Unknown to them, someone was outside using a cell phone to record everything. In that case, it saved the guy from serving a ten year sentence, because the cops were insisting he was resisting arrest. Even the man's lawyer said words to the effect, thank god for the person who made the video because typically, judges will take the word of police officers over anyone they arrest.

[silberstreif.livejournal.com]

It's impossible to understand how he walks free.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Choke holds are illegal in NYC. I was expecting them not to file murder charges, but NO charges? It's crazy.

[rose-cat.livejournal.com]

GODDAMMIT. Are grand juries really acting like trial juries these days? (No, I wasn't on any of them, but it sure as hell looks like it.)

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Even worse, they're preventing actual juries from being able to try a case.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

I think more than anything, that's what causes people to flip their lid. They decided that they're not even going to have a trial.

[hurleyman.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. I have no opinion on either MB or the above video (I am one of the few who refuse to watch things like this or Ray Rice--wah wah going through some tough shit on my own right now so I have no room in my life for this kinda stuff) so I've purposefully kept myself uninformed about both situations HOWEVER after hearing the outcome of the MB grand jury, I just can't believe how the system failed so badly. Guilty or Innocent, the fact that we can't even get to that point has me very very scared for the future...I'm no lawyer, but I'm pretty sure a SP should not be acting like a defense lawyer, at least not at that state in the game, I mean after all I've watched quite a lot of law and order in my time..../s.

I'd also like to know why/if anyone has brought up a constitutional issue against rights of the 6th amendment being violated. If we're going to deem a death sentence an appropriate response to selling illegal cigarettes, weren't his rights violated by that cop being judge, jury and executioner?

[rose-cat.livejournal.com]

Yes. I wonder how much of that has been going on that most of us don't know about.

What's a little embarrassing is that I was completely unaware of the difference until I saw an episode of Law and Order in which that was a key part of the plot. I wonder how well it's explained to the grand jury panelists in the first place?

[interdictor.livejournal.com]

Seen on Reddit: "A grand jury would indict a ham sandwich but not a whole pig, apparently."

[rowsdowerisms.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but is this really the guy you want to stake your claim to??

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Ha. I see what you did there :P

[rowsdowerisms.livejournal.com]

Clearly the prosecution flubbed on this one. Its time to call a mulligan and move on.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Emmett Till grabbed that woman's hand. She was quite flustered. He's no saint.

[rowsdowerisms.livejournal.com]

The data speaks for itself

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Is there any word as to whether the grand jury was offered a lesser charge? That's the only way I can see this result making sense.

[rowsdowerisms.livejournal.com]

I thought all internet lawyers knew how to google