4 ms·
The police subdued Eric Garner in an effort to arrest him because he was resisting. What they did was reasonable and only the hindsight of his health problems
by crusso 11y ago
The police subdued Eric Garner in an effort to arrest him because he was resisting. What they did was reasonable and only the hindsight of his health problems says otherwise. Eric Garner shares a large portion of the blame in his own death since he is the one who resisted, was breaking the law, and knew about his own health situation.
Your bar fight scenario makes no sense because there are lots of ways that a bar fight could result in one participant's death and the other participant would be judged to have acted reasonably just defending himself from an injury as "minor" as a knocked-out tooth.
- JshWright 11y agoNo, what they did was not reasonable. You're assuming he died because of the fight... In reality he died because of how he was positioned after the fight (on his stomach, arms behind his back). We have known for years that this is a dangerous thing to do (it makes it _much_ harder to breath, at a time when he was already working harder than normal to breath). The NYPD actually has a policy against exactly this sort of positioning...
- crusso 11y agoI partly agree with you and I definitely concur with your post above on this whole issue. I'm regretting mentioning Garner in my own post since it's a rathole of preconceptions. But I will point out that reasonable is not the same as perfectly following every policy. It's important to note that there were no indictments handed down in this case.
- jessaustin 11y agoIt's important to note that there were no indictments handed down in this case. The USA court system is every bit as flawed as (and certainly more corrupt than) USA law enforcement. This appeal to authority completely misses.
- dragonwriter 11y ago> It's important to note that there were no indictments handed down in this case. OTOH, those who complain about police excesses usually also complain about prosecutors being uninterested in pursuing abuses by police as crimes, seeking indictments, etc. So, "no indictments" can be viewed different ways.
- crusso 11y agoTrue, but I've yet to see the decision-based situation in the universe that couldn't be viewed differently by someone. Compared to Internet second guessing, the lack of indictments is a pretty strong data point.
- SilasX 11y agoAbsolutely not. Gauging your response to a purported suffocation on the false assumption that "if you can speak, you can breathe" is not at all reasonable. (Incidentally, that's pretty scary: to be made to suffer by someone who doesn't realize it and has constructed ironclad "proofs" that you must not be suffering.)