Another police officer decided to take the law into his hands and appointed himself the prosecutioner, the star witness, the judge and the executioner. He applied an illegal chokehold, ignored the victim’s plea that he couldn’t breathe and held on to the man’s throat until the man stopped breathing.
Today we learned that the police officer, who I must reiterate used an illegal chokehold that killed a man, today we learned the officer apparently did nothing wrong as a New York grand jury failed to indict. In the last two weeks, two police officers who killed two different individuals walked without even a slap on the wrist.
The constant in these two stories is of course, race. White police officers and black victims.
In a statement released after the grand jury found no reason to take him to court, the officer who applied the illegal chokehold, Daniel Pantaleo, said, “I became a police officer to help people and to protect those who can’t protect themselves. It is never my intention to harm anyone and I feel very bad about the death of Mr. Garner. My family and I include him and his family in our prayers and I hope that they will accept my personal condolences for their loss.”
Now I’m not saying that Pantaleo woke up that day determined to kill someone, but if his intention was not to cause “harm” to Mr Garner and instead was to “protect those who can’t protect themselves,” then Pantaleo should have released his illegal chokehold when Garner cried for his life uttering the phrase, “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe..” 11 times!
But hey, Pantaleo had the right to “go home to his family,”‘ right? That’s another constant we keep hearing – that the officer has to go home to his family. Or that he was ‘scared for his life’ and needed to remove that threat by choking Garner from behind until Garner’s lifeless body laid motionless on that Staten Island sidewalk.
“I became a police officer to help people and to protect those who can’t protect themselves,” he said, and Eric Garner’s last words were, “I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!”
