Blame only the man who tragically decided to resist
By Bob McManus
Eric Garner and Michael Brown
had much in common, not the least of which was this: On the last day of
their lives, they made bad decisions. Epically bad decisions.
Each broke the law — petty offenses, to be sure, but sufficient to attract the attention of the police.
And then — tragically, stupidly, fatally, inexplicably — each fought the law.
The law won, of course, as it almost always does.
This was underscored yet again Wednesday when a Staten Island grand jury chose not to indict any of the arresting officers in the death in police custody of Garner last July.
Just
as a grand jury last week declined to indict the police officer who
shot a violently resisting Michael Brown to death in Ferguson, Mo., in
August.
Demagoguery
rises to an art form in such cases — because, again, the police
generally win. (Though not always, as a moment’s reflection before the
Police Memorial in lower Manhattan will underscore.) And because those
who advocate for cop-fighters are so often such accomplished beguilers.
They cast these tragedies as, if not outright murder, then invincible evidence of an enduringly racist society.
No
such thing, as a matter of fact. Virtually always, these cases
represent sad, low-impact collisions of cops and criminals — routine in
every respect except for an outlier conclusion.
The Garner case is textbook.
Eric
Garner was a career petty criminal who’d experienced dozens of arrests,
but had learned nothing from them. He was on the street July 17,
selling untaxed cigarettes one at a time — which, as inconsequential as
it seems, happens to be a crime.
Yet
another arrest was under way when, suddenly, Garner balked. “This ends
here,” he shouted — as it turned out, tragically prophetic words — as he
began struggling with the arresting officer.
Again,
this was a bad decision. Garner suffered from a range of medical
ailments — advanced diabetes, plus heart disease and asthma so severe
that either malady might have killed him, it was said at the time.
Still, he fought — and at one point during the struggle, a cop wrapped his arm around Garner’s neck.
That
image was captured on bystander video and later presented as
irrefutable evidence of an “illegal” chokehold and, therefore, grounds
for a criminal indictment against the cop.
That charge fails, and here’s why.
First,
while “chokeholds” are banned by NYPD regulation, they’re not illegal
under state law when used by a cop during a lawful arrest. So much for
criminal charges, given that nobody seriously disputes the legitimacy of
the arrest.
Second,
and this speaks to the ubiquitous allegation that cops are treated
“differently” than ordinary citizens in deadly-force cases: Indeed they
are — and it is the law itself that confers the privilege.
The
law gives cops the benefit of every reasonable doubt in the good-faith
performance of their duties — and who would really have it any other
way?
Cops
who need to worry about whether the slightest mishap — a minor
misunderstanding that escalates to violence of any sort — might result
in criminal charges and a prison term are not cops who are going to put
the public’s interests first.
Finally,
there is this: There were 228,000 misdemeanor arrests in New York City
in 2013, the last year for which there are audited figures, and every
one of them had at least the potential to turn into an Eric Garner-like
case.
None did.
So
much for the “out of control” cop trope. So much for the notion that
everyday citizens — or even criminals with the presence of mind to keep
their hands to themselves — have something to fear from the NYPD.
Keep this in mind as the rhetoric fogs the facts in the hours and days ahead.
For
there are many New Yorkers — politicians, activists, trial lawyers, all
the usual suspects — who will now seek to profit from a tragedy that
wouldn’t have happened had Eric Garner made a different decision.
He was a victim of himself. It’s just that simple.
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