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Another police murder caught on video.
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Another police murder caught on video. -
Staten Island Man Dies After He Is Put in Chokehold During Arrest
The New York Police Department has launched an internal investigation into the death of a 43-year-old man whose final moments were captured in a video in which he can be heard gasping “I can’t breathe” over and over again after an officer is seen placing him in a chokehold, officials said.
The man, Eric Garner, died on Thursday afternoon as plainclothes officers tried to take him into custody on a street on Staten Island on charges of selling cigarettes, according to an account the police have released. A video, posted on the website of The New York Daily News, shows an argument of mounting intensity as Mr. Garner quarrels with a plainclothes officer about whether he would be arrested or not.
One officer, in a T-shirt and shorts, accuses him of selling cigarettes. “I watched you,” he said, to which Mr. Garner replies, “I didn’t do nothing,” and tells the officer, “Please just leave me alone.”
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“Every time you see me, you want to harass me, you want to stop me,” said Mr. Garner, who had been arrested on about 30 prior occasions, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The video, apparently recorded by a bystander who watched the scene unfold on Bay Street in the Tompkinsville neighborhood, shows two officers standing near Mr. Garner, a towering man who weighed more than 300 pounds. The video cuts out for a time. Then one plainclothes officer, who had been standing in the background as Mr. Garner argued with the other officer, suddenly moves in, placing his arm around Mr. Garner’s throat and pulling him back against a storefront window before bringing him to the ground.
Mr. Garner can be seen in the video crawling forward, as the officer hangs on, with his arm around Mr. Garner’s throat. Other officers surround Mr. Garner as well.
Mr. Garner can be heard stating, “I can’t breathe,” over and over again. The officer releases Mr. Garner’s throat and, kneeling, presses Mr. Garner’s head into the sidewalk.
Soon a voice captured on the video can be heard saying, “Something’s wrong with him.” Mr. Garner cannot be seen moving in the video.
Because of the danger they can pose, chokeholds are forbidden by the Patrol Guide, a voluminous book that contains rules for officers. “Members of the New York City Police Department will NOT use chokeholds,” the Patrol Guide states, defining chokeholds as any maneuver that places “pressure to the throat or windpipe, which may prevent or hinder breathing or reduce intake of air.”
It has been many years since the police’s use of chokeholds created controversy in New York City. In 1994 a security guard, Anthony Baez, died in the Bronx after a police officer put him in a chokehold during a dispute over a touch-football game. After the officer, Francis X. Livoti, was acquitted in state court on homicide charges, he was found guilty in federal court and served a seven-year sentence for violating Mr. Baez’s civil rights.
The Police Department’s chief spokesman, Stephen P. Davis, did not return messages seeking comment.
The office of the Staten Island district attorney, Daniel M. Donovan, is also involved in the inquiry.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, in a statement on Friday, said, “We are harnessing all resources available to the city to ensure a full and thorough investigation of the circumstances of this tragic incident.”
The Civilian Complaint Review Board, an outside agency that investigates allegations of police abuse, received 233 allegations involving chokeholds in 2013, making up slightly more than four percent of the overall complaints it received involving excessive force.
From 2009 to 2013, the review board’s investigations upheld only nine allegations involving chokeholds. The dispositions of more than 400 other allegations involved findings in which the officers were cleared of wrongdoing or the review board did not have enough evidence to reach a finding of what had occurred.
On Thursday night, the Police Department released a short statement saying that Mr. Garner went into cardiac arrest after officers had tried to arrest him. He was pronounced dead a short time later at Richmond University Medical Center on Staten Island.
The officers involved in trying to arrest Mr. Garner were members of a plainclothes anti-crime team on Staten Island, the law enforcement official said.
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They murder the manWhen its hot in the jungle of peace I go swimming in the ocean of love.....Comment
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they certainly did. thank god for cell phone videos. read it this am.Originally posted by RichD View PostComment
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