ubiquiin:
I am not going to reread the entire thread to check the exact posts where YWfan made his posts, I just acknowledged a compliment. But what I have said is that there is no way it could have been called murder, and on this point I am sure there is agreement.
Violence may have been used excessively, by which I mean that had they simply pushed him, twisted his arms, whatever, and used reasonable force, I would believe they were completely justified, even had he died, as he was resisting arrest. However, re watching the video, I believe the measures they used were excessive. Because whilst they were right to restrain him, as he was not coming quietly, they went a bit too far.
Repeat, a bit too far. Not way too far, not a public execution. Just that had they used common sense, they would have realised that a chokehold was not necessary to restrain him. So yes, I believe there is a measure of culpability there not for being killers or thugs (I do not know whether the chokehold is permitted, but that’s all just academic), but for, at that moment, having a common sense failure, and going over the top in restraining a man who would probably have dealt with it better had they used less dramatic tactics. If you watch the video, he begins struggling properly as soon as the arms go around his head, whilst before that he was just being evasive. Simply twisting his arms around would have been easier for both parties. But Garner himself was lying to the police and being difficult, so it’s not as if they could have been much less physical.
So, to sum up, there was culpability on both sides. Garner was being needlessly difficult, so the police had to restrain him in some way, but the police went too far in the measures they used, although I am certain they, at that moment, intended to do their job, and to call them malicious is ridiculous. As is saying it was a racism issue, which it clearly wasn’t.
Furthermore, they had no way of knowing the large man not coming quietly before them had asthma or sleep apnoea, or whatever, so they could hardly be expected to even consider that a method that does not generally pose a risk to life would kill a man, if it was that which killed him (It is entirely possible it wasn’t, I am not sure). So there should be no question of them standing before a murder trial, especially if the methods used were in compliance with regulations.
So to sum up, they may have been stupid at the time, and went too far in doing their job, a common scenario in police work as wnybody who has been pulled over by them probably knows, but they had no way of knowing there was any risk of death, as the fact that he later died, if related, was certainly unforeseeable at the moment the force was applied. And Garner, being as fragile as he was, should have come quietly initially, as, observing the video, he leaves them little choice but to restrain him, even if they did go too far in doing so.
One of the reasons I mistrust this whole ‘murder’ narrative is that there is a cut in the middle of the movie. If you watch any Palestinian propaganda videos, where Israeli brutality is supposedly shown, there are always cuts, which mean the video leaves out the part where the supposed victim was violent or difficult. Does anybody know why there is a cut in the Garner video? Because to me it looks suspicious.