Choke Hold Death in NYC and the Nanny State

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
161

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

(4) was absolutely a question:

[/quote]

Yes, there was a question. My mistake. Okay, was the chokehold applied too long? I don’t know. You don’t know. Those who performed the autopsy don’t know. Without any evidence to the contrary, one must leave the question must remain unanswered.

I never attempted to show that. And I’m not appealing to purported experts nor agreeing with the guys in the video. My point was merely to highlight that some aspects are in dispute. Again, I haven’t taken a position on it either way.

[quote]

Furthermore, Garner’s breathing was still being constricted, by Pantaleo, after the chokehold’s application. From the 2004 NYPDPG [these don’t seem to have changed, but I don’t have the current guidelines before me, so if you want to challenge this, I’ll have to get them]:

Whenever possible, members should make every effort to avoid tactics, such as sitting or standing on a subject’s chest, which may result in chest compression, thereby reducing the subject’s ability to breathe.[/quote]

I don’t know where you get this “Garner’s breathing…still being constructed, by Pantaleo, after the chokehold’s application” from. There’s no way to tell when and how much construction occurred. Pantaleo has his arm around Garner’s neck. But we have no way of knowing how much pressure was being applied, when pressure was released etc. We have no way of knowing when the pressure of the guy on his back was released or loosened. There is no way to tell these things.

Medical assistance will be required and was sent for. Garner went into cardiac arrest whilst with paramedics.

He was down, he said he couldn’t breath…and we don’t know if pressure was lessened, maintained or increased.

[quote]
…overwhelmed, and utterly under the control of his five restrainers – and there is certainly no question that it was appropriate, given that Garner died as a result of – whatever you’re trying to say about the ME report – his having been deprived of air by another’s hand.[/quote]

I disagree. The report takes no position on deprivation of oxygen by the police as the sole cause. Rather, a totality of actions and preexisting health conditions were listed as the cause. This is part of the reason the jury, including nine black folk, decided that there was not sufficient evidence to proceed with criminal charges against any of the cops.

162

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
I disagree. The report takes no position on deprivation of oxygen by the police as the sole cause. Rather, a totality of actions and preexisting health conditions were listed as the cause. This is part of the reason the jury, including nine black folk, decided that there was not sufficient evidence to proceed with criminal charges against any of the cops.
[/quote]

The reasons they ban the move are based generally on the risks of using it in the real world that are known to cause death, including the reasons you listed.

163

[quote]jjackkrash wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
3. Was the chokehold an ideal response? Almost certainly not. However, facts and circumstances: this cop was probably trained to use this technique at the academy and there is no evidence that its use was malevolent.
[/quote]

The reports I have seen (I have not seen the actual policies) claim that both a chokehold and LVNR were on the banned-hold list and classified as a use-of-deadly force. Therefore he was (or should have been) trained that using the technique was the same as shooting him. Your argument needs to be based on the premise that shooting would also have been proper as a “submission” move as both are on the same place on the use-of-force chart.

(And, “surprise surprise”, he used a hold classified as a use of deadly force and the guy died.) [/quote]

I haven’t argued that the chokehold was not a banned technique. I just pointed out that a choke submission hold was, according to the Police Union, once taught at the academy and may have been taught to Pantaleo.

As I said, the jury decided that there was no or not enough evidence to proceed with any criminal charges against the police. I’m not saying the cops here didn’t fuck up. I’m saying I don’t see evidence of criminal intent and if I had to make a decision based upon what I know I’d have to say there’s no evidence of criminal negligence - although, as I said before I’m not ruling it out either. I don’t know so I’m not going to speculate.

164

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
I haven’t argued that the chokehold was not a banned technique. I just pointed out that a choke submission hold was, according to the Police Union, once taught at the academy and may have been taught to Pantaleo.
[/quote]

And it also may not have been taught. You and your senseless speculation-based “facts”. You need to stop doing this, you keep having to back-track on your bullshit statements.

165

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]jjackkrash wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
3. Was the chokehold an ideal response? Almost certainly not. However, facts and circumstances: this cop was probably trained to use this technique at the academy and there is no evidence that its use was malevolent.
[/quote]

The reports I have seen (I have not seen the actual policies) claim that both a chokehold and LVNR were on the banned-hold list and classified as a use-of-deadly force. Therefore he was (or should have been) trained that using the technique was the same as shooting him. Your argument needs to be based on the premise that shooting would also have been proper as a “submission” move as both are on the same place on the use-of-force chart.

(And, “surprise surprise”, he used a hold classified as a use of deadly force and the guy died.) [/quote]

I haven’t argued that the chokehold was not a banned technique. I just pointed out that a choke submission hold was, according to the Police Union, once taught at the academy and may have been taught to Pantaleo.

As I said, the jury decided that there was no or not enough evidence to proceed with any criminal charges against the police. I’m not saying the cops here didn’t fuck up. I’m saying I don’t see evidence of criminal intent and if I had to make a decision based upon what I know I’d have to say there’s no evidence of criminal negligence - although, as I said before I’m not ruling it out either. I don’t know so I’m not going to speculate.[/quote]

There is evidence of at least criminal negligence or reckless disregard, which does not require specific intent. I just don’t think an officer gets to claim he didn’t understand that using a technique on the “deadly force” list might result in death and get off without at least a public jury trial. Until I see evidence to the contrary, my suspicion will be that the prosecutor over charged him in the secret grand jury for the purpose of giving him a pass.

166

[quote]
We have no way of knowing when the pressure of the guy on his back was released or loosened… He was down, he said he couldn’t breath…and we don’t know if pressure was lessened, maintained or increased."[/quote]

1:30 on clearly shows continued restriction of his breathing, through the utterances of “I can’t breathe”:

You need to have instruments wired to Garner’s body and telling us in real time exactly how much pressure was being applied by Pantaleo? Then you are making ludicrous evidential demands and aren’t thinking clearly about this.

As for “a totality of actions and preexisting health conditions were listed as the cause,” you are being intentionally nonspecific. CNN:

[quote]
The cause of Garner’s death was “compression of neck (choke hold), compression of chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police,” said Julie Bolcer, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office. The death was ruled a homicide. Acute and chronic bronchial asthma, obesity and hypertensive cardiovascular disease were listed as contributing conditions…[/quote]

Don’t set them up as equals when some were listed as causes and some were listed as contributing factors.

167

[quote]jjackkrash wrote:
There is evidence of at least criminal negligence or reckless disregard, which does not require specific intent. I just don’t think an officer gets to claim he didn’t understand that using a technique on the “deadly force” list might result in death and get off without at least a public jury trial. Until I see evidence to the contrary, my suspicion will be that the prosecutor over charged him in the secret grand jury for the purpose of giving him a pass.
[/quote]

This.

168

Wow, talk about wild speculation. The prosecutor wanted to get him off? And you’re going with that unless you see evidence to the contrary? Maybe Pantaleo should’ve just been convicted automatically and only pardoned if evidence to the contrary was shown. Jeez.

169

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Wow, talk about wild speculation. The prosecutor wanted to get him off? And you’re going with that unless you see evidence to the contrary? Maybe Pantaleo should’ve just been convicted automatically and only pardoned if evidence to the contrary was shown. Jeez. [/quote]

The only lawyer in this thread is telling you that he sees obvious evidence of criminal negligence, and that, as a result, he suspects that the prosecutor brought higher charges. I don’t see much illegitimate speculation except from you here.

Edited.

170

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
Acute and chronic bronchial asthma, obesity and hypertensive cardiovascular disease were listed as contributing conditions…[/quote]

Don’t set them up as equals when some were listed as causes and some were listed as contributing factors.[/quote]

He was fat and the “contributing factors” flowed directly from his fatness in an obvious way.

171

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Wow, talk about wild speculation. The prosecutor wanted to get him off? And you’re going with that unless you see evidence to the contrary? Maybe Pantaleo should’ve just been convicted automatically and only pardoned if evidence to the contrary was shown. Jeez. [/quote]

I will admit to some speculation, but it is not “wild.” The reports are the police said his “intent” would be critical to the proceeding, and then kept the charges secret. If the prosecutor charged on criminal negligence I will stand corrected. Do you have evidence the prosecutor charged on criminal negligence or recklessness? Or are you speculating?

172

[quote]jjackkrash wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]
Acute and chronic bronchial asthma, obesity and hypertensive cardiovascular disease were listed as contributing conditions…[/quote]

Don’t set them up as equals when some were listed as causes and some were listed as contributing factors.[/quote]

He was fat and the “contributing factors” flowed directly from his fatness in an obvious way. [/quote]

Sure, absolutely.

But we keep seeing the kind of nonspecific and terrible argumentation that you get when somebody wants to push a particular and illegitimate narrative. I’ve read at least a dozen news write-ups describing the ME as having blamed simply the arrest and the fatness, implying a parity. In fact, the ME reported the causes to have resulted from the arrest, and described the rest as contributing factors.

173

One caveat is, he might get immunity for criminal negligence or reckless conduct under NY Law. I don’t know the answer to that.

174

[quote]jjackkrash wrote:
One caveat is, he might get immunity for criminal negligence or reckless conduct under NY Law. I don’t know the answer to that. [/quote]

Doesn’t appear so, since the NYLJ talks about criminal negligence as a possibility:

http://www.newyorklawjournal.com/id=1202678151316/Limited-Information-Released-After-Grand-Jury-Spurns-Charges?mcode=1202615704879

Edited.

175

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

1:30 on clearly shows continued restriction of his breathing, through the utterances of “I can’t breathe”:

[/quote]

I disagree. I say it’s unclear how much pressure was being applied. Furthermore, the guy filming the whole thing didn’t suspect anything was wrong until Garner appeared to have a seizure at which stage the police also seem to be aware that Garner was in trouble and at this stage they are no longer on top of him.

But, you and I clearly see two different versions of the same event. This is a common phenomena in legal psychology. But I think we’ve exhausted any possibility of reaching an agreement. You say tomato; I say tomato.

If you’re going to argue about how much pressure is being applied by someone’s arm then yes. But only due to the fact that medical evidence of damage to the windpipe or vertebrae of the neck is non-existent. If there was medical evidence of a crushed windpipe then we could say yes, Pantaleo at some stage inflicted injurious pressure to Garner’s neck. However, the medical evidence doesn’t show that and you’re speculating. For all we know Garner had an asthmatic response and went into cardiac arrest as a result of that, that would be speculation too. I’m saying you don’t know and I don’t know and the medical examiners made clear they didn’t know.

Au contraire my little droog, au contraire. The medical examiners evidence is the only thing that could show how much pressure was applied and clearly it was not enough to damage Garner’s windpipe. No bruising of his neck was reported. And we cannot know how much pressure was applied at any particular time. All we can know is that at no stage was enough pressure applied to damage Garner’s windpipe or vertebrae.

Not sure how I was being “intentionally vague” given that I quoted exactly what you just quoted from CNN.

[quote]

Don’t set them up as equals when some were listed as causes and some were listed as contributing factors.[/quote]

I didn’t. I pointed out that some of the “causes” listed included things other than the chokehold - eg, “prone positioning.” And I further pointed out that you are attempting to attribute the chokehold alone as the cause. Your version of events has Pantaleo choking the guy out, continuing to choke him out after Garner was completely subdued and under control, and the chokehold killing him. This is not borne out by the evidence. But as I said, we’re not going to agree on this.

Edited to fix quotes

176

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

The only lawyer in this thread is telling you that he sees obvious evidence of criminal negligence, and that, as a result, he suspects that the prosecutor brought higher charges. I don’t see much illegitimate speculation except from you here.

Edited.[/quote]

Is he? Maybe. Although it’s wise to make sure you don’t have a hostile witness on your hands before you present them as an expert witness.

177

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

I disagree. I say it’s unclear how much pressure was being applied. Furthermore, the guy filming the whole thing didn’t suspect anything was wrong until Garner appeared to have a seizure at which stage the police also seem to be aware that Garner was in trouble and at this stage they are no longer on top of him.

But, you and I clearly see two different versions of the same event. This is a common phenomena in legal psychology. But I think we’ve exhausted any possibility of reaching an agreement. You say tomato; I say tomato.

[/quote]

This seems to be where we leave it.

Do you really say tomahto though? I would think you say tomoito.

178

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
I don’t believe, in our scenario, taxpayers would equal customers, but employees.[/quote]
-Why? Why would it be more likely that those funding and deciding upon representatives would be more like employees than in the current system, in which those funding the government have no more voice than those profiting from it?

[quote]
Have you ever worked for even a medium size company? The are a lot of significant hurdles to change and red tape to cut through that isn’t much different than government. The large the company the less flexible the company becomes and a company the encapsulated the entire United States would be rather large to put it mildly.[/quote]
-I’ve worked for small business owners, medium-sized companies, and a large corporation or two, as well as in local government. A larger company is obviously less responsive than a smaller one. Good decisions are still more likely to occur in a corporation that listens to its shareholders than in one that allows its competitors’ shareholders to make its decisions. Heck, good decisions are far more likely to occur in a corporation that listens solely to its CEO than in one that allows non-shareholders to have a say.

We also have to remember that we’re talking about a system in which each voter has equal power, not one in which some openly have more power than others(as in a corporation). In the current system, one has to form kind of a coalition to influence government. Is it easier to form that coalition using people who are either unable or unwilling to care for themselves and have no skin in the game, or among people that do have skin in the game and are fully capable of caring for themselves?

If representatives were elected solely by taxpayers, I believe that you would see state and local government take back some of their lost power. Leviathan has become so, in large part, by promising things to the have-nots. Take away the have-nots’ influence in government and I think that you would see the government recede toward a more legitimate role. How than can be done is a question to which I’m not sure that I have an answer, but I am quite sure that there is no reason to give legitimacy to the government of a country in which taxpayers are outnumbered by taxpayees*.

*I’m pretty sure that government workers are counted as taxpayers, which obviously can’t be. If government workers were properly counted as payees, then the true power of taxpayers in this system would be even more obvious.

179

Tomoito? Certainly not! That’s the dialect of the chattering classes. Most educated Australians have a kind of generic, colonial English accent. Some Canadians do too. It’s kind of the lingua franca of the British Empire. When I’m in the UK people don’t pick up from my accent that I’m not from the UK. So, it’s “tom-ah-to” for sure. As opposed to the “tom-ay-to” of the American pidgin dialects.

180

[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Tomoito? Certainly not! That’s the dialect of the chattering classes. Most educated Australians have a kind of generic, colonial English accent. Some Canadians do too. It’s kind of the lingua franca of the British Empire. When I’m in the UK people don’t pick up from my accent that I’m not from the UK. So, it’s “tom-ah-to” for sure. As opposed to the “tom-ay-to” of the American pidgin dialects.[/quote]

Shit, all these years I read your posts in a Crocodile Dundee accent.