I can't seem to wrap my head around Furguson (Page 3)

You can't "only keep what you need".  Every piece of that video is considered evidence in a criminal case, and possibly in a civil case as well.  How long you have to keep it can be a matter of legal debate......but what parts you have to keep are not.

I've tried to stay out of these discussions the last 3 months or so because the issue is so emotionally charged that most people only read until their emotions take over and then the yelling starts (on both sides... I've been guilty too) ....usually before they've finished reading.  That hasn't gotten us anywhere.  I'll give it a shot here.

Eric Garner's death is terrible.  If he were my son, my brother, my friend, or my father, I'd have a very hard time with the idea that his last words were "I can't breath" while 5 or 6 men were on top of him.  At some point his idea of not wanting to be arrested became a fight for his own life.  That's hard to even think about.

In a 30 year career I have been involved in hundreds of "resisting arrest" events.  Some were resolved as simply as me putting my hands on someone and guiding them in the direction I wanted them to go.  Some required a more heavy hand.  Some required mace, or a tazer, or a nightstick, and two required gunfire. Some were fights, and a few were fights where you know if you lose you might die.  Thankfully, I have never shot anyone and no one has ever died in the cases I have been involved in.  My career is not over.....it could happen tomorrow.  It's the nature of the work.

I promise you that every single one of those officers said the same thing when Garner was placed on that stretcher.  "Damn..........DAMN!!!!"  It's a nightmare for them.

Still, when you find yourself in a fight with a large man and he starts to gasp that he can't breath (which you will note he does....not during the time he is in a headlock/being choked...but during the time when 6 men are pushing him into the ground to gain control) you HAVE to pay attention......we know people with those body types can pretty easily be suffocated.  But for better or worse, right or wrong, worth it or not, those guys are in the middle of a fight and clear thinking can get muddy......until it's over.....then...... "damn........DAMN!!!!".  Man, they would have loved for Eric Garner to just turn around and put his hands behind his back.  Everybody goes home....and nobody dies. Easy stuff.

There is no criminal intent there.  There is a resisting arrest and a horrible accident.  It will occasionally happen as long as there are people who don't want to be arrested and people charged with doing so.  The GJ got it right........I'm sorry, but they did.

I abhor police brutality.  I'll testify against another officer in a heartbeat if they abuse anyone.  That's not what this is. 

RIP Eric Garner.

Thanks for your perspective LB. 

Sort of funny, but discussing this on-line is sort of "emotionless". Meaning we don't know Eric, we don't know the Officer. All we see is a clip, and make huge sweeping judgments. Speaking of huge sweeping judgments.... what's clear from the video is that Eric was not asphyxiated or strangled to death. The officer had the choke for 15 seconds. Eric didn't even loose consciousness, because as soon as the hold was released, he began saying he can't breath. 

No different than a 100 other events in my life. In hind sight, I really wish I had not made the decision I did that got me the bad out come. I'm sure Eric would wish he had just taken the citation and not got mad. I'm the sure the Officer wishes he had just walked on that day and tried harder to calm things down. But what happened is now a historical event.

Who knows what will happen in civil court, but it wasn't criminal.

LB, everything on TV is true.  Same with the internet.

You need to get with the program.  ;-)

I had mixed thoughts on the Garner case personally, but you summed it up in the intent part.  If they were beating him with night sticks on the ground then, yeah there's intent/excessive force there and charges would have been justified.  However, Their intent wasn't to harm or kill him and it's pretty obvious they were just trying to place him into custody.

It's very unfortunate, but I agree that the GJ got it right.  It was an unfortunate accident.

I agree there was no intent to murder, kill or otherwise maim Eric Garner. However, 5-6 guys piled on top of a guy who has his hands in a surrender position on the ground is excessive. Also the chokehold was against policy, for a good reason, it has been known to injure or kill people. I heard an officer call in on the radio yesterday that said it is drilled into their heads at the week long arrest techniques training, that you do not put people in chokeholds.

So, while I agree no murder charges or anything of that sort were appropriate. I do think there is a case for manslaughter or involuntary manslaughter. 

If someone was driving, was distracted by a kid in the back seat, and ran over a cyclist and killed them. We would all be screaming our heads off if they were not charged with anything. I am pretty sure most of us would agree with a involuntary manslaughter charge and a few years of probation in that case. In the Garner case the cop went against protocol, used excessive force and caused the death of a man. I think that warrants an involuntary charge. Or perhaps there is even a slightly lesser charge in that state, negligent homicide? 

But of course I was not on the grand jury and don't know all the facts. I imagine what this case came down to was expert testimony from the coroner, ME and other medical professionals as to what actually killed him. At his weight and age, it is possible he could have died from a heated argument with his wife, or from getting worked up over bad traffic. Or it is possible that the pressure from the 5-6 guys and chokehold really did kill him. I imagine the GJ heard days and days of testimony on this part and ultimately agreed that any amount of stress would have killed this guy and that he died due to his physical condition. 

My guess is that the issue of the chokehold was primary in that GJ.   First because it's against department policy, second because the coroner stated some type of neck trauma in their report (like you, I don't know all of the particulars regarding his injury), and last because Garner died.  That being said......after watching that video quite a few times, it wasn't much of a chokehold, if it was at all.  It was more of a headlock.  Back in the day we pretty routinely used chokeholds on resisting suspects and we were well trained on it's use.  If you practiced it and trained often there weren't many people, regardless of size, that you couldn't take down with it.  The idea is to get your forearm and bicep on both carotid arteries.  For illustration purposes, the persons adams apple would be in your elbow recess, so that the airway is not cutoff......it's the loss of blood that causes unconsciousness, not the loss of air.  That hold on Garner was basically used to take him down, and it surely wasn't applied until he lost consciousness.......he begins to gasp and say "I can't breath" when he is pinned on the ground by the weight of 5 or 6 men who are working to get his hands into cuffs. There is nothing on his neck at that time, the officer has moved to holding Garner's head down. I bet the GJ heard an expert or two on chokeholds.....and I bet they said it was not. (again, a guess, but I've seen a lot of chokeholds....that was more of a headlock) That's not uncommon in people of garner's stature and weight.  Like I said earlier......it's rather easy for those type of people to suffocate in that situation.  You have to be aware and be prepared to change tactics when they say, "I can't breath".....because they can't.  If I had to call a mistake somewhere that would be where it was.  Does that mistake, in the "heat of battle" rise to a criminal charge?  I don't know.  Who do you charge?  Did they hear it?  It seems they would......but you get pretty tunneled in those situations.  Could they all hear it?  How do you decide who could and who?  Again.....I'm just throwing the problems that the GJ had to deal with out there....I'm sure there are others.

I'm not really trying to defend what happened past the point where I can pretty safely say, from what I saw, that there was no intent to kill Eric Garner.  It's hard for all of us to judge these incidents because, as you said, it's hard to go back and put yourself in the place of those officers at that time under those circumstances.  As adults, we almost never get into fights.  As a Police Officer, it can be a weekly occurrence depending on the area you work. Police Officers don't always win.  The public doesn't hear about it, but we do when it happens to an Officer we work with......and all of us know of guys who had to be rescued from a catastrophic beating.  We don't want to be that guy.  So when a resisting occurs, it can tend to be much more violently responded to than the public realizes.....and maybe sometimes, much more than is necessary.  That's a really hard call......and not one that GJ's are willing to find fault with the officer(s) except in rare circumstances. 

It will be interesting to see what comes out of all of this as far as our training and techniques.....but you can be sure of one thing....somewhere right now a police officer is in a physical confrontation with a suspect....deaths are extremely rare. 

Do you find the piling on of 5-6 guys to be excessive? Seems like an argument or "resisting" with an officer tends to escalate extremely quickly these days. He went from saying "I am tired of getting harassed" to being dog piled by 6 dudes. Which leads to my other question. Do you think they had probable cause to arrest him in the first place? 

I imagine the following situation. I am riding in a car as a passenger and we get pulled over. The cop asks me for ID even though I am not driving. I refuse because I know I have the right to refuse to provide ID as long as I am not driving nor suspected of a crime. This makes the cop angry so he orders people out of the vehicle, I ask for PC for ordering me out. He then tries to search the car and we refuse. So then "in the name of officer safety" he tries to cuff us and sit us on his hood while he makes up PC to search the car and waits for the canine. If this is me, I am not going to be all giddy about putting my hands behind my back, I am likely going to argue a bit and say you have no PC to search, arrest or detain me. He then throws me to the ground and 5 of his buddies dance on my head neck and chest until they decide I am done resisting.

None of this is too far outside of what all of us have seen on countless Youtube vids, all over a speeding ticket and a citizen asserting his rights and the cop getting hacked off about it. I was involved in an encounter with police where I was a passenger, the driver was pulled over for a license plate frame "obstructing the plate" (it was the standard frame every dealer puts on. The driver hands over ID and the cop gets pissed because he has nothing so then he starts demanding further info, asks for the driver's SS #. Driver says you have my license in your hand, go look it up if you want it. The cop stares him dead in the face and says "you wouldn't want to get arrested for delaying me in my duties would you?" As this is going on 3 other cop cars show up. 

I am as law abiding as they come and I have more than once had my rights trampled by a cop. 

Just seems that perhaps the pendulum has swung a bit too far in the name of officer safety. I understand it is a dangerous job and you never know what you are going to get. But it seems that a little common sense and some personality profiling training might go a long way. It almost seems necessary at this point since everything is on video these days. Aside from my two bad encounters I have not had problems with other cops, however I plan to always have video rolling when I talk to cops in the future.

One last story. I got pulled over for speeding once by two state cops on a divided highway where one direction is 60mph and the other is 50mph unbeknownst to me. One was obviously a trainee and the other was supervising. I was driving my Father's 98 BMW 740il, I was 26 years old and my 30 year old Brother in Law was in the passenger seat. The cop was cordial. However the trainee did demand ID from my passenger (the passenger obliged without question). The car is a company car so the cop had questions about why we were driving it, where we came from, where we were going, none of which I was obligated to answer but I did with a smile anyway. The cop then questions the factory window tint on the car so orders us out of the car so the trainee can do his window check crap. I again oblige with a smile. As the trainee is fiddling with the tint machine I am at the back of the car talking to the other cop. We are having a pleasant convo, he asks me about the car and how it drives (it is old but looks great and is a nice car). He has a brand new Charger so we talk about his car and how fast it is compared to the Crown Vic, etc. I am clearly not a threat. It is cold out so I put my hands in my pockets, he wigs out and orders me to take my hands out of my pockets immediately while reaching at his belt.

Big deal in the grand scheme? No. But really??? I am bending over backwards ignoring my rights so that your job can be easy and your buddy can get some training in and you are still going to freak out on me for putting my hands in my pockets in the name of "officer safety"? A little common sense would have been better in this situation. He had already run my info and found absolutely zero record, we had been in contact for 15-20 minutes at this point and he still has a freak out. 

I won't get into the two bad encounters (still makes me mad). I guess my overall point is, the pendulum seems to have swung too far toward officer safety and thus treating everyone like criminals and has thus lead to ordinary law abiding citizens have a distrust of the police and being more apt to video encounters, assert their rights, and possible get squashed to death by 5-6 guys for asserting their rights. Doesn't seem to be as much "Protect and Serve" as their once was.

Whew... that was a novel!

You may have a point about the pendulum having swung too far toward officer safety.  I don't watch many police videos on you tube so I really don't know what's out there. I have heard your sentiment expressed before.....I wonder if the fact that many of the officers we hire now are war veterans has anything to do with it?  Our country has been at war long enough now that almost all of our applicants have been in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.  I know that one bad experience by a person can lead to the idea that the police are out of control......and I'm not saying that's not understandable.  I just don't know if the perception is true or not.  I'm open to the possibility.  As for whether they had probable cause to arrest him.....I have no idea.  I'm going to assume yes since that hasn't come up.

Here's the thing about your first comment......the suspect in that video is a BIG guy.  I would imagine they stood there for awhile trying to get him to comply as more officers showed up.  It's normally considered safer to dog pile someone than to strike them.....in this case it didn't turn out well.  But.....and here's my experience with the police.....it almost always does turn out better.  Impact strikes cause injuries....."dog piling", as you call it, not so much.

I know this.....bad things happen.  They happen more when it goes to a fight.  No matter what, at some point someone has to put their hands on Eric Garner to get him arrested.  You see a guy putting his hands up to surrender.  I saw a big man put his hands up and say don't touch me, or don't put your hands on me....I can't remember now.  Either way.....that ends with everyone on the ground.

Yeah, he did definitely wave his hands about the place and say leave me alone, I meant to point out that he backed off in a big hurry as soon as Rocky Balboa was around his Hulk Hogan neck.

Interesting point on the combat vets, I imagine that could definitely have somewhat of an affect on the kind of applicants you get and their feelings on personal safety. Kind of goes back to the whole militarization of police thing as well. I know some cops in my city PD pretty well, I have a lot of respect for them, but they talk a lot about SWAT training and all the cool training they do with military gear and such. It seems like everyone wants to be one of the cool guys in body armor, carrying an M16. Seems to me that if you train someone to act like they are in a war zone, chances are they are going to be hypersensitive and ready to go to war at any moment. On the other hand you have a case where a cop does not draw and fire soon enough on a guy who is clearly disobeying orders to stay in the vehicle and ends up killed by a psycho with a rifle. Maybe some training on reading people better, or psych profiling (not sure if that is even possible).

Not sure where the balance is, but seems a slight shift the other way might be in order at this point. Maybe the camera idea would help. But yeah, I see lawyers having a field day with that. Heck every time a cop was involved in something and had to testify you would have defense lawyers pulling up video from everything that cop did for the last 5 years. Like you said, would eliminate all discretion and lead to more arrests and charges. 

One thing is for sure......more discussion like this would be a hell of a lot more useful than anything I've been dealing with the last few months.  It seems like people on both sides can't pull the emotion out of the equation.  There is likely quite a bit to learn from all viewpoints.....but we're a loooong way from there I fear. 

HA!  We run a "citizens police academy" and put the folks through some pretty realistic scenarios.  They even have airsoft pistols.  It's amazing how many times they end up shooting.  Maybe they just like shooting us with airsoft BB's. LOL   Their eyes get opened wide when we explain how far off their use of force was.  And then when they find out that the proper response was some type of hands on action they're like, "oh hell no, I'm not up for that".    

It's a great job.  There is rarely a day that goes by when I don't get an opportunity to help someone.  It has enriched my life. The rest of the work is just the business of trying to help maintain some law and order.....it's not the good stuff.  I never wanted to do anything else.  After all these years, I feel exactly the same. 

Here is some GREAT and CALM discussion between sports talking heads.  

http://www.sportingnews.com/nba/story/2014-12-04/nba-on-tnt-ferguson-segment-charles-barkley-kenny-smith-shaq-knicks-cavaliers

I always tell people that you can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride.

Always comply with the police, even if they're 100% in the wrong.  You can deal with that later in the court system.  

There's always examples of bad cops, and even people impersonating cops so it's not always cut and dry, but it's extremely rare that you'd ever want to not comply with teh police.  
It's kind of like getting robbed.  Statistically, you are better off to always give up your wallet and give the punk what they want, but sometimes they are still going to just shoot you.  It is legal to defend yourself from a cop if he is breaking the law, but omg you better be right and it better be VERY obvious because the benefit of the doubt will always go to the police officer.  lol
Did I mention I have video cameras on my car and house.  I also record the audio of any law enforcement interaction.  

I bet that's some must see TV. 

I'm building up my library.  So far I've caught two accidents with the car, and two burglary suspects with my house cameras.  

I see a future....... "Tony's Tales"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoCOXYiYM8g

HAHAHAHA!!!