Indicting all police by implication is not “social justice” There are endemic problems in so-called Black American society and similarly large parts of White American society. Police wrongdoing is not even a small part of either.
The so called Garner “choke hold” incident continues to be used to incite overwrought demonstrations and demonstrators. Reading the Argus-Dispatch (A-D) this morning one can get the flavor of the non-violent demonstrations. But to the discerning reader there are the usual inanities and logical non-sequiturs revealed along with the presumption of guilt towards police and disregard for the legal process. But facts or balanced discussion do not figure into most of these demonstrators’ (if not fomentors’) purposes.
The 60 demonstrators here did not block the streets or loot and at least one spokesperson decried those who do. That part of the protest we can appreciate. But the title of the front page story says much as well. Protestors Rally for Social Justice . After the devastating loses in November leftists are in full tilt to make noise and condemn others even when a cause celeb has no relation to social justice.
Of course the A-D reporter relies on the loaded language of the protestors to make the story and assumes that the spin the protestors of the Brown and Garner cases are unassailable and reflect something endemic with police and at fault with white America. There is no attempt to suggest that there is any dispute to the demonstrators’ conclusions about the particular events or, even if valid, seriously more than isolated incidents. But don’t let facts get in the way of a narrative or performances art or ease in writing a story.
More reading about the Garner “chokehold” From Patriot Post: Why Cops Focused on Garner (some of these points were made in our previous post regarding the matter, as related by Rush Limbaugh).
Another twist in the Eric Garner saga. According to New York Congressman Peter King, “The district attorney of Staten Island is a man of unimpeachable integrity. … The highest ranking officer at the scene was an African-American female sergeant [Kizzy Adoni]. She was there the whole time. The reason that the cops were there that day is the local merchants – this is a minority neighborhood, these are minority business people – went to police headquarters and the chief of the department, who is an African-American. They complained that Eric Garner was disrupting the area and preventing people from coming into their stores. [Police] were there at the request of minority shop owners, under the direction of an African-American police chief, and under the supervision of an African-American sergeant.” King added, “I’ve seen a number of people taken down – this was a takedown. If someone is resisting arrest it often takes four or five cops to get them down. You have to subdue the person on the ground. The officers said, ‘Put your hands behind your back,’ and he wouldn’t. … I’ve seen guys held down. … If they had let up on the tension and he got up it would’ve started all over again.” If those facts don’t undermine the Left’s race-bait narrative, we don’t know what does.
Newsmax ran this Jim Meyers article yesterday. We list some of the points not made elsewhere:
11 Facts About the Eric Garner Case the Media Won’t Tell You
4. At the time of his death, Garner was out on bail after being charged with illegally selling cigarettes, driving without a license, marijuana possession and false impersonation.
8. The grand jury began hearing the case on Sept. 29 and did not reach a decision until Wednesday, so there is much testimony that was presented that has not been made public.
9. The 23-member grand jury included nine non-white jurors.
10. In order to find Officer Pantaleo criminally negligent, the grand jury would have had to determine that he knew there was a “substantial risk” that Garner would have died due to the takedown.
The following two articles appeared in The Federalist and NBC New York . They implicate police and other emergency responders for lack of professionalism and worse. We would plead for the perspective that from the evidence Garner’s death is still of his own primary culpability, especially for resisting arrest for no good reason, and that Garner’s severe health problems could not be known by police (not necessarily an excuse for any medical personnel’s malfeasance). The demonstrators want to indict all America for the black situation today when “black” leadership is primarily culpable. The sociology of that is clear enough to us.
Marc Fitch writing in The Federalist maintains that poor training may be at the root of Garner’s death:
What Everyone’s Missing By Focusing On NYPD Chokehold Of Eric Garner
I’ve worked in mental health for six years and I teach verbal and physical crisis prevention to both behavioral health staff and emergency department personnel. It occurs, not from a “chokehold,” as seen in the video. Indeed, it doesn’t appear that the officer held onto Garner’s throat long enough to directly cause his death. Rather, restraint-related positional asphyxia is the result of the patient being face down on the ground or having someone put his weight on the individual’s chest, leaving the patient unable to expand his or her chest to inhale. In this way (and if this is truly the case), the death could be ruled a homicide (death caused by another human being) without being intentional murder. Officer Daniel Pantaleo is seen in the video first putting Garner in a chokehold and the group of officers wrestling him to the ground. However, once face-down on the concrete to put the cuffs on, Pantaleo is kneeling on Garner’s upper back and head. It was at this point that Garner began to say he couldn’t breathe.
NBC New York broadcast this report, the result of a second video we were not aware of. While not justifying any claim beyond the particular case, conservative commentators should incorporate it into commentaries:
Four EMS workers who responded to the arrest of a man who later died in police custody have been suspended without pay . . .
A friend of the victim showed NBC 4 New York new cellphone video Monday that showed the response moments later as Garner lay on the ground, not moving: the paramedics, EMTs and police peer over Garner, and none administer CPR. . . .
The EMS workers, who have not been identified, included two EMTs and two paramedics. The workers are not city employees but work for Richmond University Medical Center, according to the FDNY. They were first placed on modified duty, and then hospital officials announced Monday the workers were being suspended and would not be allowed to work at the hospital or throughout the 911 system.
Further the NBC New York reports regarding the police officer exonerated for criminal action by the Grand Jury:
Court records show that within the past two years, three men sued Pantaleo in federal court over allegedly unlawful, racially motivated arrests. Pantaleo did not return a telephone message.
Such information needs to be put in perspective as well, including whether he was exonerated in those, (if not why was he still on duty) and the testimony that he was not in charge during the Garner arrest time frame, a black officer was.
