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Staten Island Grand Jury Does Not Indict in Eric Garner Case

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T

TTUVAPOR

Banned
jmood88 said:
No, that's not the reason this happened, that's blaming the symptom and not the problem. If it wasn't cigarettes, it would've been loitering, or whatever other stupid reason an nypd officer can come up with for harassing black people. White people need to stop looking at these as rare individual circumstances and understand why non-whites are getting so upset.
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The initial call for the cops to come out to Garner was that he was selling cigs. He actually broke up a fight though, but some store owner said Garner was selling cigs on the sidewalk, thus the NYPD doesn't allow that, thus they were called to the scene to arrest him for selling cigs. He's been arrested several times before this for selling cigs.

If he wasn't selling the cigs, none of it would have happened. If the damn NYPD actually arrested drug dealers instead of cig sellers...this wouldn't have happened.

It's super convenient to play the race card in this case.
 
T

TTUVAPOR

Banned
tbm24 said:
The police were not called out there because of Garner selling cigs. The cops were summoned to break up a fight that Garner had already broken up.
Click to expand...

Yeah I know that, but he was also selling cigs on the sidewalk. Or loosies.

Those NYPD cops had nothing better to do.
 
E

ezrarh

Member
Tawpgun said:
Don't underestimate the strength of public opinion.
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The public opinion right now is the status quo. The worst that can happen is that it stays the way it is. I say protesters should be inconveniencing others, as long as it's not outright violence on randoms of course. You need people to pay attention.
 
J

jmood88

Member
TTUVAPOR said:
The initial call for the cops to come out to Garner was that he was selling cigs. He actually broke up a fight though, but some store owner said Garner was selling cigs on the sidewalk, thus the NYPD doesn't allow that, thus they were called to the scene to arrest him for selling cigs. He's been arrested several times before this for selling cigs.

If he wasn't selling the cigs, none of it would have happened. If the damn NYPD actually arrested drug dealers instead of cig sellers...this wouldn't have happened.

It's super convenient to play the race card in this case.
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Again, you're addressing the symptom and not the problem. Both you and Rand Paul are being deliberately obtuse. There's no reason that something as petty as an allegation of selling an untaxed cigarette should lead to that large number of officers called in to surround the guy or the type of force used to restrain him. Their response is emblematic of a systemic issue in the nypd in regards to how they treat black people. This isn't the first, and won't be the last, time that the nypd acts like a black person accused of a misdemeanor is a terrorist that needs to be put down.
 
Z

Zabka

Member
TTUVAPOR said:
Good article.

I'm shocked by how many cops are on the scene for a non-violent arrest. Seriously. Staten Island cops have nothing better to do? Is the island so small that that's the only crime happening?
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Sometimes. Its population density is much lower than the rest of the city. For more information on what cops think of being assigned to SI please watch this informative film: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exiled:_A_Law_&_Order_Movie
 
T

TTUVAPOR

Banned
jmood88 said:
Again, you're addressing the symptom and not the problem. Both you and Rand Paul are being deliberately obtuse. There's no reason that something as petty as an allegation of selling an untaxed cigarette should lead to that large number of officers called in to surround the guy or the type of force used to restrain him. Their response is emblematic of a systemic issue in the nypd in regards to how they treat black people. This isn't the first, and won't be the last, time that the nypd acts like a black person accused of a misdemeanor is a terrorist that needs to be put down.
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I don't disagree that there's an issue with the NYPD. I also am emphatetic to Garner's situation, the takedown on him was completely unecessary. There's nothing wrong with having several opinions about why this event happened. There's many issues that have to be resolved in this case, excluding the fact that Garner was black; he was selling cigs; he broke up a fight, etc.

I remember a kid in high school who got pulled over for speeding and when he was asked to get out of the car, he started mouthing off to the cop, his head got slammed onto the trunk of his car and he was cuffed and sent to the station. He got let go, but the fact that he was literally slammed onto his trunk...that was uncessary too.

There are many cops out there who abuse their power. I understand split-second decision making, but there are many cases where it goes completely overboard.
 
J

jmood88

Member
TTUVAPOR said:
I don't disagree that there's an issue with the NYPD. I also am emphatetic to Garner's situation, the takedown on him was completely unecessary. There's nothing wrong with having several opinions about why this event happened. There's many issues that have to be resolved in this case, excluding the fact that Garner was black; he was selling cigs; he broke up a fight, etc.
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There is something wrong with not acknowledging race because this is a common occurance in black neighborhoods. It doesn't always result in death but the nypd have been giving this outsized response to very petty (or nonexistent) crime for decades.
 
M

maabus1999

Member
TTUVAPOR said:
Yeah I know that, but he was also selling cigs on the sidewalk. Or loosies.

Those NYPD cops had nothing better to do.
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Supposedly his family said they didn't find any cigs on him and just remembered him from selling them before. No matter how you cut it, suspicious and excessive by the Police.
 
E

EatinOlives

Member
TTUVAPOR said:
I don't disagree that there's an issue with the NYPD. I also am emphatetic to Garner's situation, the takedown on him was completely unecessary. There's nothing wrong with having several opinions about why this event happened. There's many issues that have to be resolved in this case, excluding the fact that Garner was black; he was selling cigs; he broke up a fight, etc.

I remember a kid in high school who got pulled over for speeding and when he was asked to get out of the car, he started mouthing off to the cop, his head got slammed onto the trunk of his car and he was cuffed and sent to the station. He got let go, but the fact that he was literally slammed onto his trunk...that was uncessary too.

There are many cops out there who abuse their power. I understand split-second decision making, but there are many cases where it goes completely overboard.
Click to expand...

Nothing wrong with people having several opinions, but there's definidely SOMETHING wrong with saying people are "pulling the race card". It's so completely tone deaf and ignorant to say that given the statistics and centuries of police officers in urban areas profiling and acting deliberately more aggressive toward blacks than whites.

Nobody is ingnoring that he was selling cigarettes, had the cops called on him before, etc. All of that is true, but that's beside the point. Everything that happened after the cops arrived at the scene is in line with police power abuse against blacks, and that's what people are upset about, because that's what's worth getting upset about.
 
manfestival

manfestival

Member
The eric garner case isn't exactly a case of race in my eyes. It is however a case of clear cut injustice. I have no opinion on ferguson but this Eric Garner case has me greatly disappointed.
 
W

wildfire

Banned
tbm24 said:
The police were not called out there because of Garner selling cigs. The cops were summoned to break up a fight that Garner had already broken up.
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Exactly. Garner was simply not agile enough to leave the area before the cops arrived. They brought up the cigarettes because they looked into his past records in order to make him look like a thug.


TTUVAPOR said:
Yeah I know that, but he was also selling cigs on the sidewalk. Or loosies.

Those NYPD cops had nothing better to do.
Click to expand...

Even if the call about illegal sales was true this is Staten Island. It's like fighting crime in Nova Scotia. They don't have serious threats in their jurisdiction.
 
smokeymicpot

smokeymicpot

Beat EviLore at pool.
TTUVAPOR said:
Good article.

I'm shocked by how many cops are on the scene for a non-violent arrest. Seriously. Staten Island cops have nothing better to do? Is the island so small that that's the only crime happening?
Click to expand...

The island isn't that small plus that neighboorhood isn't the greatest. There is also a precinct not to far from that area.
 
J

jamesinclair

Banned
Holy shit
On 8th Avenue at 14th Street, police began making a series of violent arrests, kicking and punching protesters on the ground and discharging a cloud of pepper spray into the crowd.

On that Southeast corner was Donna Robertson, 65, wiping tears from her eyes. She said she had been pepper-sprayed by the NYPD. "Being silent is not good enough," Robertson said. "This is just so sad to me that things are not that different from the 60s."

Robertson, who is visiting New York from Atlanta, Georgia, told us she was determined to protest when she heard the non-indictment news. She said she was only standing peacefully with a protest sign in hand when police sprayed her in the face. "It's a shame that we as citizens can't walk in our street without being pepper-sprayed."

Immediately after the arrests, as if on cue, a giant luxury boat was directed through the intersection that had just been cleared of protesters demanding social justice.
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http://gothamist.com/2014/12/05/protest_eric_garner_two.php#photo-1

B4D5ooOIMAAvnDW.jpg:large



By midnight, the protest in Times Square was frozen and police began arresting people at random, including Carmen Bercero's husband, Don. The couple had just walked out of her office on 7th Avenue and were trying to catch a cab.
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At the ferry terminal, police quickly assembled barricades in an attempt to stop protesters from demonstrating on Staten Island. After a brief skirmish, officers successfully blocked off the terminal entrance with a human chain of officers and arrested those who tried to break through. But over to one side, another group of officers were quietly permitting access to those they believed to be commuters, while rebuffing anyone who appeared to be demonstrating.
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A

Angelus Errare

Banned
Keep in mind that the lady in that story who is 65…she was in her late teens during the 60s during the civil rights movement and all the fuckery that came with that.

Let that sink in, so when someone says "we're a post racial country" or "X happened so long ago we've moved on".

Tell them to shut up.
 
J

jmood88

Member
Angelus Errare said:
Keep in mind that the lady in that story who is 65…she was in her late teens during the 60s during the civil rights movement and all the fuckery that came with that.

Let that sink in, so when someone says "we're a post racial country" or "X happened so long ago we've moved on".

Tell them to shut up.
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Yup, it's like what Louis CK said about people treating slavery like it happened 500 years ago. There are millions of people in this country who personally experienced Jim Crow and other forms of state-sanctioned racism.
 
Jag

Jag

Member
We Must Stop Police Abuse of Black Men
Hours after coming out of the police academy, I was told something as a new rookie officer: You’d rather be tried by 12 jurors than carried by six pallbearers. In my impressionable first days, I saw officers leave the precinct every day touching the lockers of their fallen brothers. They started their shift on the defensive, thinking about protecting themselves, as opposed to the communities they served, regardless of the complexion of those communities. One of my white fellow officers once told me that if he saw a white individual with a gun, he took extra care for himself and the individual. When he saw a black individual with a gun, he took care only for himself.

These are the lessons to which I was exposed, and the reality of what policing communities of color has been, not just in New York City but across America. There is a legacy of inequity that did not just appear overnight, but was carved into the culture of law enforcement over decades.
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L

Lan Dong Mik

And why would I want them?
I'm sorry but this is an absolute disgrace. How is this cop not going to trial? It seriously makes no sense to me. With Ferguson I can sort of understand why Wilson was not indicted, even though I absoultely think he should have been. But with this? How is there any question? How can they not indict this officer? This has the potential to cause massive riots. Over 50 people were killed during the Rodney King riots and he lived!! These cops killed a man and there is footage of it!!! I thought body cameras and such were going to be good step in the right direction, but is it even going to matter in the long run? This shit depresses me.

Is there anyway that they could go back and correct this mistake like what they did with the officers that beat Rodney King and got off the first time around? Is it going to take mass riots again for that to happen? I can't remember if those officers were indicted or not, but I remember that they were acquitted originally.
 
A

AwakenedCloud

Member
I missed the ShutItDown Huntsville event because I got off work late, pretty upset about it. I feel as though we need a centralized site for people to list all of the ShutItDown events and raise awareness of them more quickly. From what I heard, over 200 people showed up to it, so it was a relative success. But there's 3 college campuses in the area, so we could do much better.
 
C

Chie Satonaka

Member
CountBlackule said:
Ayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy lmao
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...

So...

I just want to be clear here. We have all this civil unrest because a cop killed a man using a chokehold while being filmed...

And another cop is now being filmed, again, performing the same fucking chokehold?

I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but it's seriously like these people are getting memos to esclate this shit as much as they possibly can whenever they get any possible opportunity. This is amazing to watch in the worst possible way.
 
M

Metal Goat

Banned
Chie Satonaka said:
...

So...

I just want to be clear here. We have all this civil unrest because a cop killed a man using a chokehold while being filmed...

And another cop is now being filmed, again, performing the same fucking chokehold?

I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but it's seriously like these people are getting memos to esclate this shit as much as they possibly can whenever they get any possible opportunity. This is amazing to watch in the worst possible way.
Click to expand...

well shit it's not like the cop is going to face any repercussion
 
M

Maxim726X

Member
Sadly, it's all political.

DA gets lots of political contributions from the PBA--> DA charges him with something that couldn't stick (premeditated murder) and he goes free.

Disgusting, of course. But I expect nothing less from this country at this point.
 
F

Foffy

Banned
ezrarh said:
The public opinion right now is the status quo. The worst that can happen is that it stays the way it is. I say protesters should be inconveniencing others, as long as it's not outright violence on randoms of course. You need people to pay attention.
Click to expand...

This. If people are not bothered by this in direct experience, they get caught in their own bubble and potentially grow apathetic to the situation. Every major social issue in America today has gotten nowhere because not enough people have paid attention and have personally been hindered by it, even if it means they're caught in traffic by protesters. They are either inconvenienced that way, or they're in the "ingroup" related to the problem, be it poverty, racism, sexism, any oppressive state. It's only when the problem is right before their very eyes they feel the tangibility of it.
 
D

DECK'ARD

The Amiga Brotherhood
CountBlackule said:
Ayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy lmao
Click to expand...

Chie Satonaka said:
...

So...

I just want to be clear here. We have all this civil unrest because a cop killed a man using a chokehold while being filmed...

And another cop is now being filmed, again, performing the same fucking chokehold?

I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but it's seriously like these people are getting memos to esclate this shit as much as they possibly can whenever they get any possible opportunity. This is amazing to watch in the worst possible way.
Click to expand...

It's from April:

http://bustedcoverage.com/2014/04/09/san-francisco-cop-chokes-giants-fan-whos-already-handcuffed/
 
F

Figboy79

Aftershock LA
jmood88 said:
Yup, it's like what Louis CK said about people treating slavery like it happened 500 years ago. There are millions of people in this country who personally experienced Jim Crow and other forms of state-sanctioned racism.
Click to expand...

Pretty much. My mother is also 65, and she wasn't allowed to drink from non colored water fountains, eat at whites only establishments, and had to use the colored restrooms among other things. She's been assaulted by cops, threatened, the whole shebang.

The Civil Rights moment isn't Ancient Greece. Something so far removed from our timeline that there's a disconnect. For people like Ms. Robertson and my mother, this is just "Same shit, different year." They fought so hard so their children wouldn't have to do what the protestors in Ferguson and NYC, and other cities that are protesting are doing right now.

Think about that for a minute. Blacks and Whites that fought and protested 30, 40 years ago must feel like all of it was for fucking NOTHING, when we're still fighting, almost literally, the same injustices they did when they were our age or younger. It makes me really sad to think about.

Schools loved to paint the picture that the Civil Rights movement had a happy ending, but in reality, people just took what small victories they were handed back then and hoped for the best for their children.

I'm sorry it hasn't worked out the way they hoped.
 
M

Maninthemirror

Banned
Wtf


Police: Chokehold victim complicit in own death
Associated Press
TOM HAYS and COLLEEN LONG 2 hours 44 minutes ago
NEW YORK (AP) — Eric Garner was overweight and in poor health. He was a nuisance to shop owners who complained about him selling untaxed cigarettes on the street. When police came to arrest him, he resisted. And if he could repeatedly say, "I can't breathe," it means he could breathe.
Click to expand...

Officers say the outcry has left them feeling betrayed and demonized by everyone from the president and the mayor to throngs of protesters who scream at them on the street.

"Police officers feel like they are being thrown under the bus," said Patrick Lynch, president of the police union.

The grand jury this week cleared a white patrolman, Daniel Pantaleo, who was caught on video applying what appeared to be an illegal chokehold on the black man. Mayor Bill de Blasio said the case underscores the New York Police Department's need to improve relations with minorities.

But Lynch said: "What we did not hear is this: You cannot go out and break the law. What we did not hear is that you cannot resist arrest. That's a crime."
Click to expand...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/police-cases-stir-national-protests-debate-072514910.html
 
K

Kalnos

Banned
Maninthemirror said:
Wtf

TOM HAYS and COLLEEN LONG 2 hours 44 minutes ago
NEW YORK (AP) — Eric Garner was overweight and in poor health. He was a nuisance to shop owners who complained about him selling untaxed cigarettes on the street. When police came to arrest him, he resisted. And if he could repeatedly say, "I can't breathe," it means he could breathe.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

I love how people continue to say this as if it matters or is some sort of real defense. Clearly there was something wrong and saying "I can't breathe' is the only way he could describe it.
 
C

Crocodile

Member
People do realize you can talk for short periods of time without taking a breath right? It's like basic human physiology. How can people be so stupid about something you can literally try for yourself RIGHT NOW! Also, considering he DIED, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that no, he couldn't actually breathe.
 
K

Kaladin

Member
I'd challenge any PR person to look at that statement and tell me that it won't further incite protests that are going on.
 
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