“It’s the same statement I made before,” James said after the Cavaliers finished shootaround Thursday before a 90-87 win over the New York Knicks. “It’s a sensitive subject right now. Violence is not the answer and retaliation isn’t the solution. As a society we just have to do better. I pray for the families of the lost ones.
“Obviously anytime you lose someone, it’s a downer for the whole family, and I’m not going to get too far involved in the logistics of the things because I’m not a part of it, but you pray for the families.”
Less than two weeks ago, James said the decision not to indict Darren Wilson, the officer responsible for the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, “hit home for me,” and he lamented the rioting, looting and overall violent reaction to the news.
Amar’e Stoudemire, speaking after the Knicks’ loss, said he was “pretty upset” that he wasn’t involved in any of the protests in New York.
“I think it’s something that’s, it’s very alarming in our country as far as that’s concerned,” Stoudemire said. “We have to be more conscientious of what the law enforcement’s job is, and that’s to protect and serve. Those two words are very strong when you think about that.
“Your first job is to protect, and your second job is to serve. Obviously it’s not happening that way. So we’ve got to figure out a way to create a better economic unity for all of the have-nots.”
New York Jets defensive end Sheldon Richardson — a St. Louis native — reaffirmed his position, as well, while discussing the issue at the team’s facilities in Florham Park, N.J.
“Destroying Ferguson is not what I wanted to come from the verdict of the grand jury,” Richardson said. “I wanted my whole city to stay intact. I don’t think we’ll bounce back from that — the area of Ferguson, anyway. That’s just how I feel about it. I just want my hometown to stay as peaceful as possible, but I don’t blame them. I know where they’re coming from, but that’s not the solution.”
I’m so tired of writing about this crap. I’m sure you are tired of reading about it. None of us are surprised another grand jury didn’t indict a cop. Grand juries indict 99.9 percent of time. The .1 percent of the time they don’t is because a cop is on trial. The entire grand jury system needs to be scrapped. There is simply no need for it. They do exactly what the prosecutors want. If they want an indictment, they hand it down, if they don’t, they vote “no true” bill, whatever the hell that means or meant back in 1787 when maybe the grand jury system was necessary. They are now worthless, chocked with people who don’t think on their own, and just march in lock step with the orders they are given. They are just slaves to their prosecutor masters. It is time for the entire system to go.
In the Eric Garner case we have a video. Much like in the Ray Rice case. Before we had the Rice video many people were saying his punching out his fiancee wasn’t a big deal. After the video many wanted to hang Rice. Same case, same offense, but there was video. In the Michael Brown case there is no video. Imagine the difference if there had been. Now I don’t mean a difference in the outcome of the grand jury. We have all seen Eric Garner choked to death. It’s clear to see and it didn’t make a difference. Therefore there is data now that tells us police wearing cameras will not make much of a difference. Yes like with Garner, there would be a difference with public opinion but not where it counts most, in the justice system. Because a grand jury simply will not indict a police officer.
We all saw what happened. There really is no excuse to not get an indictment for probable cause. Which brings up another issue. An issue which is so glaringly unfair, such an obvious conflict of interest that the fact it had not been remedied decades ago proves that our justice system is not the best in the world. People can scream and yell about how it’s the best as much as they want, just like they scream and yell that everything in this country is the best, it still doesn’t make it a fact. In this case I’m talking about having an ordinary prosecutor take cases involving police shootings or misconduct. The same prosecutors who are on the side of the police, who work with them daily and need them to make their cases. The same prosecutors who are buddy buddy with cops, who go out and drink with them and socialize with them. This is the greatest injustice of all injustices. Any case which involves law enforcement needs to be assigned immediately to a special prosecutor that has NO connection with the cops involved. If the federal government needs to be involved then so be it. Any country that is serious about its judicial system being the best and most fair would have had this in place already. It’s that simple.
I have to love those right wingers who are now feigning bewilderment at the Garner case. Because there is a video they cannot dispute. Well, most of them. I’m not talking about the disgusting Rudy Giuliani or abhorrent Peter King. They both have enough white ethnic cop apologists (some who are indeed racists) among their followers and constituents that they can be as grotesque as they want with no consequences. The others are, all of a sudden, shocked and amazed that a grand jury didn’t indict. As though this was the first injustice ever. Even though we just had one before this. Of course they still won’t admit any kind of racism was involved. You see it’s all just a coincidence that these are white cops killing blacks, time after time.
Timothy Loehmann, the cop in Cleveland who killed 12 year old Tamir Rice was rejected by the NYPD. The same department that allowed Daniel Pantaleo, the cop who killed Eric Garner, (and who already had one civil case against him settled for tens of thousands of dollars), onto the force, rejected this guy. That’s how bad he is. He was also thrown off a previous police force due to emotional and other issues. He has been reported to have said that he wanted to join the Cleveland police department because he wanted “action.” Action? I thought cops just wanted to go home at night? Oh, and by the way, citizens deserve to go home at night as well. Even more so actually because they aren’t willingly taking a job that can be dangerous and getting money and a pension for it. But this cop was obviously nuts, so why was he hired? Because they never checked into his background. Disgraceful. And the police unions, willing to defend everything and anything a bad cop might do, make this liberal want to hate unions.
Police departments not checking backgrounds before they hire. Cops with no ability to relate on a human, emotional level to another person. When a child puts a chokehold on another, when they are just doing horseplay, and the other child screams or says they can’t breathe, the other child releases. Why? Because human nature kicks in and makes them care about the other kid, to understand that causing distress is bad and wrong. But our cops seem to lack this most basic human ability. Time after time. Whether it’s someone with their hands up or someone who has already been shot two or three times, or a child with a toy gun, or a guy gasping for air, saying 11 times, “I can’t breathe.” Several cops just stood around while Garner was choked to death, both during and after the act.
Too often these cops have no emotional or ethical conscience. There is something sociopathic about it and that’s frightening. Not only do we need police departments to do the BASIC operations of checking backgrounds but we also need better psychological screenings or people wanting to be cops. We need police officers with true concern for the lives and well being of the citizens they are sworn to serve and protect. Not just the old deli owner who serves them lunch, that’s easy, but the people they encounter daily who might be breaking the law as well. That the lives of these people are as important as their own. That they have families they want to go home to as well.
The mentality of the warrior cop must be expunged from the police force. It must be replaced by the human cop.
While the family of Eric Garner and other decent human beings mourned Ericsson senseless loss and the grand jury’s decision, some people were rejoicing. This couple could not contain their excitement.
Rep. Peter King has said some dumb things in the past, so who do you go to if you want to hear dumb things about the Eric Garner murder? You go to Peter King of course.
After the grand jury decided not to indict any of the police officers involved in Garner’s murder, Peter King went on CNN and praised the officers for a job will done, and at the same time, the Republican managed to cast blame on the victim for the victim’s death.
“You had a 350-pound person who was resisting arrest. The police were trying to bring him down as quickly as possible,” King said in an appearance on CNN’s “The Situation Room.” “If he had not had asthma and a heart condition and was so obese, almost definitely he would not have died from this. The police had no reason to know he was in serious condition.”
The confrontation between Pantaleo and Garner was also caught on video that showed Garner repeatedly telling the officer he couldn’t breathe. King said police hear that kind of thing all the time.
“But if you can’t breathe, you can’t talk,” he argued.
The Long Island congressman also dismissed the idea that any racial animus played into Garner’s death.
“I have no doubt, if that were a 350-pound white guy, he would have been treated the same,” King told CNN.
Earlier Wednesday, the congressman tweeted his thanks to the grand jury for not indicting Pantaleo.
Jon Stewart was at a loss of words last night as he too tried to cope with the non-indictment decision handed down by the grand jury in the Eric Garner case.
“I don’t know,” Stewart confessed. “I honestly don’t know what to say. If comedy is tragedy plus time, I need more f*cking time. But I would really settle for less f*cking tragedy, to be honest with you.”
Garner’s death at the hands of a police officer in Staten Island New York, was caught on video and showed an overly aggressive group of officers bringing down and ultimately killing the unarmed man for committing the unthinkable crime of selling loose cigarettes.
The decision not to indict anyone for the killing of Mr. Garner sparked thousands of people to take to the streets in protest calling for justice in the Garner’s death. Stewart echoed those calls, questioning the justice system and our concept of a civilized society.
“We are definitely not living in a post-racial society. And I can imagine there’s a lot of people out there wondering how much of a society we’re living in at all.”
No, the man that killed Eric Garner was not indicted, but the man who videotaped the killing, was. And we call this “justice.”
On Wednesday, a Staten Island grand jury decided not to return an indictment for the police officer who put Eric Garner, an unarmed black man, in a chokehold shortly before his death. A different Staten Island grand jury was less sympathetic to Ramsey Orta, however, the man who filmed the entire incident.
In August, less than a month after filming the fatal July 17 encounter in which Daniel Pantaleo and other NYPD police officers confronted Garner for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes, a grand jury indicted Orta on weapons charges stemming from an arrest by undercover officers earlier that month.
Police alleged that Orta had slipped a .25 caliber handgun into a teenage accomplice’s waistband outside a New York hotel. Orta testified that the charges were falsely mounted by police in retaliation for his role in documenting Garner’s death, but the grand jury rejected his contention, charging him with single felony counts of third-degree criminal weapon possession and criminal firearm possession.
In Garner’s case, on the other hand, jurors determined there was not probable cause that Pantaleo had committed any crime. A medical examiner ruled Garner’s death homicide in part resulting from the chokehold, a restraining move banned by the NYPD in 1993.
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!”
The (AP) reports – A lawyer says a grand jury in New York City has declined to indict a white police officer on criminal charges in the chokehold death of an unarmed black man in July.
Jonathon Moore, an attorney for the victim’s family, said Wednesday he was told there would be no indictment of Officer Daniel Pantaleo (Pahn-TUH’-lay-oh) in the death of 43-year-old Eric Garner. Garner was stopped in Staten Island on suspicion of selling loose, untaxed cigarettes.
Amateur video shot by an onlooker showed Garner refusing to be handcuffed. Pantaleo responded by putting Garner in an apparent chokehold, which is banned under NYPD policy. Garner was heard yelling, “I can’t breathe!”
The Daily News reports that Reps. Hakeem Jeffries, Gregory Meeks and Yvette Clark called Thursday for the U.S. Department of Justice to open investigations into both the controversial tactic of aggressively enforcing low-level offenses to prevent more serious ones — a cornerstone of NYPD policing — and the July 17 death of the Staten Island man after being placed in a chokehold by a police officer.
“The family of Eric Garner deserves an independent and impartial investigation,” said Jeffries. “The only way for that to happen is for the Department of Justice to step in and get involved.”
The trio joined three New York congressional colleagues — Charles Rangel, Nydia Velazquez and Jose Serrano — in sending a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder about the case.
The nation’s top prosecutor has said his office is “closely monitoring” the city probe into Garner’s death.
Ramsey Orta, who filmed the NYPD chokehold that resulted in a Eric Garner’s death, was arrested Saturday on gun charges, and his family thinks the NYPD is punishing him for the video.
Police say officers saw Orta stick a handgun into the waistband of his friend as they were leaving a “known drug prone location” on Staten Island Saturday night — just one day after the city medical examiner ruled Garner’s death a homicide.
Orta’s family told the press that the cops had been following him, even parking outside of his house in wait. Orta’s wife Chrissie Ortiz said he phoned her during the incident. “He called me and said, ‘babe, hurry up and come over here, they’re trying to pin something on me,’” she said.
“They park across the street, they follow him,” Ortiz said. “It’s obvious. Once they rule this a homicide, now you all of a sudden find something on him? Come on, let’s be realistic. Even the dumbest criminal would know not to be doing something like that outside. So the whole story doesn’t fit at all.”
Eric Garner died on Thursday, July 17, following an encounter with New York Police officers. (Video still/WNBC via NY Daily News)
NEW YORK (AP) — A chokehold used by a white police officer on a black New York City man during his arrest for selling untaxed, loose cigarettes last month caused his death, the medical examiner announced Friday, ruling it a homicide.
Eric Garner, 43, whose videotaped confrontation with police has caused widespread outcry and calls by the Rev. Al Sharpton for federal prosecution, was killed by “the compression of his chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police,” said medical examiner spokeswoman Julie Bolcer.
Asthma, heart disease and obesity were contributing factors, she said.
Chokeholds are prohibited by the New York Police Department. The case is being investigated by prosecutors on Staten Island, though Attorney General Eric Holder has said the Justice Department is “closely monitoring” the investigation.
The NYPD didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the medical examiner’s ruling. The officer who put Garner in the chokehold was stripped of his gun and badge pending the investigation, and another was placed on desk duty. Two paramedics and two EMTs were suspended without pay.
Police Commissioner William Bratton has said the officer appeared to have placed Garner in a chokehold and has ordered a top-to-bottom redesigning of use-of-force training in the NYPD.
In provocative comments Thursday, Sharpton called for the officers to be charged criminally. Sharpton believes chokeholds are used disproportionately on minorities.
Welcome to the New York, where the police officers are called “the finest in the world,” but they still resort to the tried and proven primitive method of choking people inorder to restrain them.
After a Staten Island man named Eric Gardner, lost his life to an illegal cholehold administered by a police officer, other examples of this police-favored submission hold, have been highlighted on the Internet.
In this example, a woman in Brooklyn, seven months pregnant, got up close and personal with her very own chokehold. Her crime? Having a barbecue on the sidewalk in front of her house.
Photos released Monday by an East New York advocacy group show Rosan Miller, 27, struggling with a cop who appears to have his arm around her neck.
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