2 different hws. one is 8 sentences the other is 400 words

PSC 393

Police and Media

James Mulvaney

Eric Garner Lecture

Eric Garner died on a State Island street on July 17, 2014. His arrest was filmed and the video went viral. It shows a police officer seemingly using a banned chokehold and audio broadcast Garner saying “I can’t breath” as police continue to manhandle him.

The arrest on charges of selling untaxed cigarettes was pursuant to complaints from shopkeepers. The 395 pound man had been arrested twice previously on that charge. He also had been previously released with no charges and a warning.

While most of the media focus was on the police, it became known that EMS did not provide emergency relief to the man as he gasped his last breaths.

The New York City Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide, saying the primary cause was a “chokehold” and chest compression, with complicating issues including Garner’s history of bronchial issues and obesity.

The case unfolded against a background of other police related deaths of unarmed black men. Less than a month after Garner died, a police officer in Ferguson, MO, shot an killed Michael Brown, leading to days of rioting and civil unrest widely broadcast.

Two years earlier an unarmed black teen was killed, Trayvon Martin, was killed by a self-identified neighborhood patrol officer in Florida. That sparked the Black Lives Matter movement even though the gunman in the Martin case, George Zimmerman was a civilian.

Other victims included Dontre Martin, a black man with a history of mental illness after he was shot 14 times by police in Milwaukee during a scuffle. In August, Ohio police killed John Crawford III who was wielding a bb gun at a Walmart. In November, Akai Gurley was killed by an accidental NYPD gunshot in Brooklyn.

Almost immediately, the NYPD placed Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who was photographed choking Garner, on modified duty.

A Staten Island grand jury declined to indict Officer Daniel Pantelo in the killing of Garner, sparking immediate outrage.

A gunman drove from Baltimore and assassinated two NYPD officers sitting in their patrol car in revenge for the killings of Garner and Brown.

There was unfocused public debate over the so-called chokehold. The technique, widely used by police across the country, was banned by NYPD regulations. However police chokeholds are not by themselves illegal.

Media accounts didn’t help. Ranging from activist blogs to CNN, commentators spread the fable that the chokehold was illegal. Most mainstream media tended to decry the failure to indict.

The day after the Staten Island grand jury decision was announced, then-Attorney General Eric Holder announced the Department of Justice had opened a criminal civil rights investigation into the death

It was eerily reminiscent of federal charges being brought against the four LAPD officers who had ben acquitted of state charges in the Rodney King case. Two of the former cops were found guilty of charges stemming from the assault on King and did time in prison in federal prison.

Protests took place across the country in the wake of Garner’s death, marked as the most active period of civil rights protests in decades. Many of the protests were sparked by the quickly emerging social media presence, an antidote to comparatively staid mainstream. The PBA said the attacks on Pantaleo were driven by a biased left-wing media.

Pantaleo remained on “modified” duty during the course of the city and federal investigations, causing outrage from both sides – Garner’s supporters claiming he should be immediately fired, Pantaleo’s supporters (led by the NYPD PBA) claimed he was being scapegoated. Some complained that the media was overly sensational, focusing on flashy images of violence, never focusing on thoughtful questions about the underlying racial issues.

A year after the death, Garner’s family accepted a $5.9 million wrongful death settlement from the City of New York.

The incident led then-Police Commissioner William Bratton to initiate a program that led to all NYPD patrol officers wearing body cameras. The expected complaints from the police union were dampened by the reality of the existence of so many static closed circuit cameras that cops decided police-worn cameras might prove a strong defense for officer accused of misconduct.

A big change occurred in Washington. No longer was there a black man in the White House. Donald Trump had become president. Instead of Eric Holder, a black man, the U.S. Attorney General through much of the investigation was Jeff Sessions, a former U.S. Senator from Alabama who had ben frequently accused of racism.

Sessions was gone when the federal decision was reached. New York’s Eastern District U.S. Attorney Richard Donohue announced on the eve of the tolling of statute of limitations that a decision had been made the case was not prosecutable and the cop could not face charges.

The decision came from the top, with Attorney General William Barr overruling career civil rights prosecutors who wanted to file charges. Though not as blatant as his predecessor Sessions, whose southern drawl invoked images of the Jim Crow Era, Barr had his own questionable record according to liberal critics. Barr was appointed by President Trump who has spent much of his presidency playing to his so-called “base” white conservatives including any number of white supremacists.

On Aug. 2, 2019, an NYPD trial judge recommended Pantaleo be fired.

Commissioner James O’Neill agreed with the decision and Pantaleo lost his job without any pension rights.

� https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWoZ4Mj9028

� https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/08/20/eric-garner-timeline-chokehold-death-daniel-pantaleo-fired/2059708001/

� https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/nyregion/eric-garner-police-chokehold-staten-island.html

� https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gq8wmq/nypd-and-ems-workers-failed-to-help-eric-garner-after-cop-choked-him-721

� https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/02/nyregion/staten-island-man-died-from-officers-chokehold-autopsy-finds.html?smid=pl-share

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� https://www.nhpr.org/post/milwaukee-s-district-attorney-weighs-dontre-hamilton-case

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� https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexronan/the-life-and-death-of-akai-gurley

� https://www.foxnews.com/us/nypd-places-officers-involved-in-fatal-arrest-on-modified-duty.amp

� http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/12/daniel_pantaleo_not_indicted_why_the_nypd_officer_wasn_t_indicted_in_the.html

� https://nypost.com/2014/12/20/2-nypd-cops-shot-execution-style-in-brooklyn/

� https://www.city-journal.org/html/chokehold-issue-15469.html

� https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/19/opinions/justice-eric-garner-errol-louis/index.html

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� https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/statement-attorney-general-holder-feder https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/02/08/home/rodney-indict.htmlal-investigation-death-eric-garner

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� https://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/05/us/sympathetic-judge-gives-officers-2-1-2-years-in-rodney-king-beating.html

� https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/17/one-year-ago-eric-garner-new-york

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� https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2014/12/04/new-york-police-union-official-blames-media-over-eric-garner-case/

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� https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-12-04/ferguson-case-reveals-us-media-s-flaws-covering-issues-race

� https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/14/nyregion/eric-garner-case-is-settled-by-new-york-city-for-5-9-million.html

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� https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/sessions/563006/

� https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/statement-united-states-attorney-richard-p-donoghue

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� https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/LDF.pdf

� https://www.vox.com/2018/11/5/18059454/trump-white-evangelicals-christian-nationalism-john-fea

� https://abcnews.go.com/US/judge-recommends-nypd-officer-eric-garner-case-fired/story?id=64730948

� https://nypost.com/2019/08/19/nypd-fires-officer-daniel-pantaleo-in-chokehold-death-of-eric-garner/