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Re: No Indictment in Chokehold Death
Can you link to Holder and/or Obama saying what you claim they are re: Garner?
There happens to be a real problem with untaxed cigarettes in NYC. Garner wasn't the only one selling them. Business owners are arrested for selling them too. The huge number of untaxed cigarettes they confiscate are then auctioned off to bidders after they have received the proper state stamp. Last I read close to 50% of all cigarettes being consumed in NYC are untaxed. That's what happens when people allow their legislatures to tax the heck out of something they don't approve the use of personally. It turns people into smugglers. It turned John Hancock into a smuggler over taxes.
New harsher laws/penalties for selling untaxed cigarettes went into effect this year in NYC thanks to Mayor Bloomberg. Instead of issuing a citation like a traffic violation, cops in NYC have to treat selling untaxed cigarettes (loosies) with an arrest. Just days before Garner's death the cops had got their marching orders from the higher ups to "crackdown" on the sell of "loosies". It's a crying shame a cop has been put into that position but it wasn't of his making.
It was business owners calling the police telling them of Garner's activities that led them to put him under surveillance. And he was arrested multiple times in possession of cigarettes that were untaxed.
As far as arrest goes, the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the US Justice Department, the continuum is a set of policies that “describes an escalating series of actions an officer may take to resolve a situation.”
“Pain Compliance” is a stage along the continuum.
What the jury was instructed to do is determine if the NYPD officer's hold on Garner was an accepted “Pain Compliance technique”. The next step would have been to Taser along the "Use of Force Continuum" if the first wasn't successful. Experts in the field of law enforcement called what the officer did to be within guidelines. Obviously the Grand Jury agreed with them.
It's unfortunate that NYC cops have been put into a position to shakedown people over untaxed cigarettes.
It's unfortunate Garner resisted arrest. He had a long rap sheet and had he lived he was facing jail time again in October. Maybe that had to do with him not submitting to the arrest.
It's unfortunate that the leadership of this country including the top cop Holder to the President to the mayor of NYC are using this incident to be about racism when it was store owners who were predominantly black, where Garner would set up his business of selling his cigarettes that reported his activities. The police officers on the scene including their lieutenant, is a black female. Her superior, the Chief of Police is also black.
Can you link to Holder and/or Obama saying what you claim they are re: Garner?