Re: No Indictment in Chokehold Death
Compression of his chest and neck--blood was getting to his brain but not getting out rupturing vessels in his brain. I believe that is what it said.
It has been posted a number of times what a chokehold does physiologically.
There are a few ways of assaulting someone else that are very incapacitating that are known to poise a danger of causing death. Two involve the neck.
One is slugging someone in the throat. Usually this won't kill the person but sometimes it will. If it collapses the person's throat - or causes it to swell shut - the person will die - unless someone knows what to do right away to cut an airway.
A chockhold usually won't kill a person unless that is the goal, and sometimes will whether this is the goal or not. Chockholds used to be a way to kill someone making it look like natural causes - specifically a heart attack - as a chockhold is an attack against the person's brain AND against the person's heart.
Here (again) is how a chockhold works - and how it killed Mr. Garner - as certain to happen as if that officer had stuck a taser into the center of his heart. The brain requires more oxygen for its size and more continuous oxygen than any other human organ. A chockhold significantly reduces the flow of blood to the brain. In response, to protect itself, the brain rapidly and increasingly shuts down the rest of the body to save the brain. This included the heart and lungs, not just muscles.
The officer not only had a chockhold on Mr. Garner, but also his weight on Mr. Garner's back for which breathing then required Mr. Garner to lift his body and the officer's body to breathe, while his brain was shutting down Mr. Garner's lungs and heart (which pumps the oxygen throughout the body). That is what was happening when Mr. Garner said "I can't breathe. I can't breathe."
His brain - for the lack of oxygen - was increasingly shutting down his muscles (required for breathing with more than a couple hundred extra pounds to life), increasingly cutting down the his lung muscles, and dramatically cutting down his heart rate - which future cut the supply of oxygen to his brain and whole body.
At that point, hearing this, the officer released his hold. That release was the same as had the officer run a tazer thru Mr. Garner's back straight into the center of his heart. With Mr. Garner's brain and entire body oxygen depleted - plus still all the weight of his body and of that officer still already making breathing difficult, plus his muscles not fully revived also making breathing possible, the brain threw Mr. Garner's heart rate and blood pressure off the charts - causing a heart attack. It was at that moment Mr. Garner was dying of a heart attack, ie his heart stopped from the radical sudden increase in effort and blood pressure.
It is likely he could have been saved by ordinary methods of addressing that manner of heart attack - to do CPR to keep so blood flowing while his heart muscle could lose it's essentially "charley horse" (anyone who has had a muscle freeze up like a rock with a charley horse knows what I mean - and also know the muscle will relax.
But the police didn't do CPR and the EMTs did nothing. In short, they all just let Mr. Garner die.
If this had been a gang attack? Police may have come to his aid when he was under attack. Other people may have. Police, EMTs or other people may have done CPR. Instead, a punk maverick officer with a history of abusing African-Americans did a deadly chockhold adding his body weight to it - and then the police and EMT just stood there watching Mr. Garner die - for which because of the police no one else dare try to save him.
That's what killed Mr. Garner.
I do understand our arm chair couch potato forum warriors declare that someone like them with the physical fitness of a 20 year old dual state champion in wrestling and long distance running, plus their all being champion body builders blame Mr. Garner's health issues for his lack of their physical perfection. But I also understand that with this they also throw in their tacit racism posting about fried chicken, gravel and cheeseburgers. If Mr. Garner was Latino, it would tacos and burritos. All their blaming the victim for their own death, like they would blame rape on the victim, claim abused children bring it on themselves, and hope old people die off to spare money from the SS system.
Anyway, that is what killed Mr. Garner. A deathly chockhold move enhanced by the officer adding his body weight to the attack against Mr. Garner's heart - as that is what a chockhold is.
