I have reviewed the video of Eric Garner, the Staten Island man who cops choked and killed and I must note that every one of the officers involved as well as the EMTs who were on the scene should be terminated for their parts in this man's death. The officer who choked Eric Garner, the officer who pressed his head against the ground, the officer who cuffed him and the EMT who lied about him still breathing.
There is a culture with some officers that when a person verbally protest it is resisting arrest. It is not! Within this culture they feel that you cannot speak up for yourself nor explain anything. If you raise your hands they become violent and seem to put the blame on the so called suspect. Because of videos we can now see that some officers are simply cowards who without being a part of a group of officers they would otherwise not become so violent.
To punish all involved might send a message that would have a practical impact on NYPD oficers throughout New York City. They would handle confrontations without being so brutal.
The racist mentality among some officers must end and/or be removed. As well the culture of cowardice must be eradicated. Cowards should never be given guns, badges and authority. Cowards are quick to use them when it is least necessary.
Because I believe that Bill Bratton will eventually run for Mayor he is going to handle this in a manner that is pleasing to African Americans. Hopefully he makes the right changes within the NYPD to get rid of the the culture of cowardice and brutality. ~Malik Shabazz
TIME talks with the man who filmed the fatal incident on Staten Island
Updated July 23, 2014
On July 17, Ramsey Orta was talking to his friend, Eric Garner, about where to eat dinner — Friday’s, maybe, or Applebee’s. They eventually decided on Buffalo Wild Wings, but Garner never made it. Soon, a fight broke out nearby, Orta says, and after Garner helped break it up, New York Police Department officers on the scene accused Garner of selling untaxed cigarettes and attempted to arrest him.
Garner, a 43-year-old father of six who was unarmed at the time, argued with the officers about why he was being targeted. To corral Garner, one officer used what appeared to be a choke-hold, a technique banned by the NYPD. Several others helped drag him to the ground. Garner, who had a history of health problems, died soon after.
Orta recorded the incident on his phone and the video has helped turn the fatal encounter from a local tragedy into a national debate over the use of force by police. Orta, 22, says he’s known Garner for several years and called him “the neighborhood dad.” Orta’s video shows what appears to be one officer pressing Garner’s face into the sidewalk as other officers attempt to subdue him. On the ground, Garner can be heard repeatedly saying “I can’t breathe.”
“I felt like they treated him wrong even after the fact that they had him contained,” Orta says.
Since Orta’s video became public after being published by the New York Daily News, the officer who grabbed Garner by the neck, Daniel Pantaleo, was ordered to turn in his badge and gun; another was reassigned to desk duty. The four emergency medical workers who responded to the scene have also been suspended without pay. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said he was “very troubled” by the footage, and both prosecutors and the NYPD are investigating the incident.
Patrick J. Lynch, the president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, criticized the department’s response as “a completely unwarranted, kneejerk reaction for political reasons and nothing more.”
Orta recorded another violent arrest at the same location in Staten Island a week earlier. He says officers have harassed him since the Garner video became public, but he says he isn’t likely to put his camera away if something happens in his Staten Island neighborhood again.
“It just gives me more power to not be afraid to pull out my camera anytime,” he says. “Even if they’re pushing me back, I might just like keep going forward and if I get arrested, hey, I got something on camera.”
~~~The Gothamist~~~
First Police Report On Eric Garner's Death
Doesn't Mention Chokehold
The initial police report on the fatal arrest of Eric Garner in Staten Island last week makes no mention of a chokehold and downplayed the seriousness of Garner's condition, raising questions about how the investigation would have been conducted had graphic video of Garner's death not surfaced. Sgt. Dhanan Saminath also told interviewers that once Garner was in handcuffs "he did not appear to be in great distress," according to a copy of the report obtained by the Daily News.Another officer at the scene, Sgt. Kizzy Adonis, told investigators that while she “believed she heard the perpetrator state that he was having difficulty breathing,” she believed "the perpetrator’s condition did not seem serious and that he did not appear to get worse." Garner went into cardiac arrest while lying face down on the sidewalk in handcuffs and was pronounced DOA at Richmond University Medical Center.
No mention of a chokehold, which has been prohibited by the NYPD since 1994, is made in the report. Officers Justin Damico and Daniel Pantaleo were not interviewed for the report because of a possible criminal investigation.
Garner's encounter with NYPD officers last week was not his first; in the past year Garner had been arrested several times, for selling untaxed cigarettes, driving without a license, and marijuana possession. The Times reports that Garner had been arrested more than 30 times over the years, and in 2007, Garner claimed that he was sodomized by an officer during a search. From the Staten Island Advance:
On Sept. 12, 2007, while being held in the Otis Barnum Correctional Center on Rikers, [Garner] wrote on a court form document: "On September. 1, 2007, at approx.. 7:30 p.m. on the corner of Castleton Ave & Heberton Ave [a police officer] and his team stopped me for reasons of there own. I was ordered to place my hands on the black SUV in which they were riding in.
"I complied with no problem. [The officer] then patted me down by ways of going through my pockets and socks and not finding anything illegal on my person. [The officer] then places me in handcuffs and then performs an cavity search on me by ways of 'digging his finggers in my rectum in the middle of the street.' "
Garner claimed the officer unzipped his shorts, and pulled out and inspected his genitals "in the middle of the street, all the while there are people passing back and forth. I told [the officer] to stop and if he wanted to do a strip search on me I'm willing to go to the police station if he wanted to because I had nothing to hide, my request was ignored.
"I then told [the officer] that I was fileing charges for him violating my civil rights, I was then hit with drug charges and told by [the officer] 'that I don't deserve my city job due to the fact that I'm an convicted felon on parole.' (I work for the New York City Park Department."
Under the "injuries" category, Garner claims "the injuries I received was to my manhood in which (the officer) violated" through the search of his rectum and genitals "for his own personal pleasure. (The officer) violated my civil rights.
Officer Pantaleo, who was caught on video putting Garner in a chokehold, has been sued twice for civil rights violations.
(UPDATE: A Parks Department spokesman confirms Garner worked for the Parks Department. "Eric Garner worked for Parks as a Job Training Participant from May 14, 2007 to September 1, 2007 and again from April 2, 2013 through September 24, 2013," says spokesman Philip Abramson. "In his recent position, he assisted with Staten Island horticulture crews and performed maintenance at the Greenbelt. These are approximately six-month positions and he left because his line ended.")
Meanwhile, the two paramedics and two emergency medical technicians who responded to the scene on Thursday have been suspended without pay. Many have questioned why first responders did not give Garner oxygen, and appeared to do little more than check his pulse and load him sloppily onto a stretcher. According to the Times, some experts wonder whether they "were intimidated by a large police presence and as a result failed to follow protocol."
Dr. Alexander Kuehl, referring to one of the EMTs, tells the Times, "It was like she either didn’t want to be there, which is hard to understand, or police basically told her to just let him alone. She certainly didn’t do her job. She’s totally overawed by the cops. She doesn’t do her assessment at all. There was something very peculiar about her approach."
Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.
FBI Monitoring Investigation of Eric Garner's 'Chokehold' Death
His death drew national attention when a video of his arrest was widely disseminated, showing police putting Garner into an apparent chokehold, forcing him to the ground, and ignoring cries from Garner that he couldn't breathe.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday afternoon, N.Y.P.D. commissioner Bill Bratton said that the lead investigative agency at this time is the Staten Island District Attorney. He said that police investigators have spoken to the F.B.I. "to discuss their monitoring of this investigation," and that he would "not be surprised" if they began a civil rights violation case. He said that "consistent policing" was of the utmost importance and refuted the idea that race was a factor in the incident.
The Reverend Al Sharpton and director Spike Lee, two prominent New York City-based Civil Rights activists, were quick to denounce Garner's death. Lee released a video of the arrest edited with clips from his classic 1989 film about race relations in Brooklyn, Do The Right Thing on his YouTube page.
The New York Police Department removed eight-year Officer Daniel Pantaleo's badge and gun shortly after the incident. Pantaleo, who can be seen wrestling Garner to the ground with his arm wrapped around Garner's neck, was also placed on modified assignment until the completion of all investigations.
"Chokeholds are in fact prohibited by the New York City Police Department as they are in most other police departments in the United States because of the concerns of potential deaths arising from them," Bratton said in a press conference on Friday.
Meanwhile, New York's Civilian Complaint Review Board, which investigates charges against the police department told The Washington Post it received 1,022 chokehold allegations between 2009 and 2013, and had investigated 462 of them.
While the autopsy is pending, authorities believe Garner died of a heart attack.
"My office is working along with the NYPD to do a complete and thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding Mr. Garner’s death,” Richmond County District Attorney Daniel M. Donovan Jr. said in an official statement.
At the time of his death Garner had three misdemeanor charges pending in court.
"Mr. Garner’s three open cases with the Richmond County District Attorney’s Office were abated by death this morning in Staten Island Criminal Court, thus dismissed and sealed," Communication's Director, Douglas C. Auer told The Wire Wednesday.
Garner was arrested on August 22, 2013 for driving without a license and was subsequently charged with aggravated unlicensed vehicle operation, false personation, possession or sale of untaxed cigarettes, and marijuana possession.
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