The chokehold is only half the story of homicidal violence.
When New York City police arrested and subdued Eric Garner,
he fit a profile: an uncooperative black man committing a petty crime. But the
profile that police should have recognized—and the one that Garner fit
perfectly—was of someone vulnerable to a dangerous combination of banned law
enforcement practices used routinely across the country with impunity, and
sometimes fatal results.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, it was not the chokehold
alone that killed Garner. And it was not solely Officer Daniel Pantaleo who was
responsible for the homicide of the unarmed 43-year-old African-American man
arrested for a “quality-of-life” offense under “broken windows policing” that
encourages arrest for even the most trivial crimes—in Garner’s case, selling
“loosies,” unpackaged cigarettes, on a Staten Island street.
The video of
his death, which went viral and sparked protests, shows Pantaleo’s arm tightened
around Garner’s neck. It also shows a cluster of officers, including Pantaleo,
kneeling on Garner’s back and pressing his face, mouth and nose to the pavement
as he lay facedown, hands cuffed behind him, pleading— at least 11 times—“I
can’t breathe.”
The Office of the City Medical Examiner ruled Garner’s death
a homicide, citing both “compression of neck (chokehold) [and] compression of
chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police.”
First, about the chokehold: According
to his lawyer, Pantaleo told the official inquiry he “never exerted any
pressure on the windpipe.”
His denial, even if true, is largely irrelevant. There are
two main types of chokeholds, and during a struggle, one may easily slide into
the other. Pressure to the windpipe—an air choke—directly cuts off the ability
to breathe and can kill quickly. Pressure to the veins and arteries of the
neck—a blood or carotid choke—stops blood flowing to and from the brain and
cuts off its oxygen.
Both holds can kill, and that is why, back in 1993, the NYPD banned them. Chief
John F. Timoney, then commander of the department’s Office of Management
Analysis and Planning, said: “Basically, stay the hell away from the neck.
That’s what [the policy] says.”
And then, Garner’s second cause of death: positional
asphyxia caused by “compression of chest and prone positioning.” Even when used
alone, extended prone restraint—placing a suspect facedown, hogtied or with
hands cuffed behind—has caused untold in-custody deaths by suffocation and is
therefore prohibited by many police departments, including the NYPD. But when
officers also kneel or push on the restrained person’s back or neck, as they
did with Garner, the danger of positional asphyxia escalates. And when the
suspect has been pepper sprayed, is intoxicated or has medical conditions such
as Garner’s—obesity, asthma and a weak heart—the danger skyrockets.
Dr. Michael Baden, former NYC chief medical examiner and
later State Police chief forensic pathologist, who was hired by the Garner
family to review the autopsy report, told the New
York Times: “Obese people especially, lying face down, prone, are unable to
breathe when enough pressure is put on their back. The pressure prevents the diaphragm
from going up and down, and he can’t inhale and exhale.’’
The cell phone video shows that even after Pantaleo released
the chokehold, and Garner was cuffed, hundreds of pounds of cop flesh pushed
down on him. His struggle against that weight was evidence not of vitality and
aggression, but rather of desperation to change position so that he could
breathe.
“The natural reaction to oxygen deficiency occurs—the person
struggles more violently,” a 1995 National Law Enforcement Technology Center bulletin warned.
The struggle aggravates the asphyxia by increasing the heart rate and causing
carbon dioxide to build up in the lungs.
Ill-trained or angry police who double down on restraint
when a handcuffed captive thrashes are clearly violating procedure. “As soon as
the suspect is handcuffed, get him off his stomach,” the NYPD’s Guidelines to
Preventing Deaths in Custody state. “Turn him on his side or place him in a
seated position. If he continues to struggle, do not sit on his back.”
The fact that Garner had medical conditions increasing his
vulnerability to positional asphyxia was not readily knowable. But that he was
obese and struggling to breathe—even after the chokehold that compromised him
was released—was obvious. That, once handcuffed and down, he was not
immediately turned over or allowed to sit up was both a violation of
long-standing policy and, ultimately, homicidal.
And by failing to act after Garner became comatose, police
further violated policy—and possibly the law. The NYPD patrol guide warns that
officers are required to “intervene if the use of force against a subject
clearly becomes excessive. Failure to do so may result in both criminal and
civil liability.”
The FBI issues similar injunctions. To avoid in-custody
injury or death, officers should “monitor subjects carefully for breathing
difficulties/loss of consciousness. Be prepared to administer CPR. Obtain
medical assistance immediately.”
“He didn’t die because he stopped breathing on his own,”
said his sister, Ellisha Flagg. “He died because someone took his breath away.”
And the EMTs who arrived on the scene made no effort to give
it back. Faced with the limp, unconscious man, they were bizarrely passive, failing
to apply an oxygen mask, to ensure that Garner’s airway was clear or to
assess his condition in any way beyond seeking a pulse.
Prone restraint and resulting positional asphyxia have been
implicated in numerous in-custody deaths on the street and in prisons. And if
police departments are unmoved by compassion, they might consider liability.
Even though officers escape criminal charges, civil courts have levied millions
of dollars in settlements.
In 2013, Ethan
Saylor, who had Down syndrome, refused to leave a Maryland movie theater
because he wanted to see the film again. Three off-duty sheriff’s deputies
forcibly removed the 294-pound disabled man. “They placed him [facedown] on the
ground,” his mother Patti testified before a Senate committee, “prone
restraint, put handcuffs on, and my son died of asphyxiation on that floor of
that movie theater for that $10 movie ticket.”
Police used prone restraint on: Jonny
Gammage, a Pittsburgh man, at a traffic stop; Charles
Dixon, an Altoona, Pennsylvania man, after a disturbance at a birthday
party; Oral
Brown, who was found wandering disoriented in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
after his car crashed; and Tanisha
Anderson, whom Cleveland police were taking for a mental-health evaluation
after her parents reported she had disturbed the peace. All died from positional
asphyxia in what amounts to institutionally protected homicide.
In 1999, Brian Drummond,
who was unarmed and mentally ill, ended up inva permanent vegetative state
after cops subdued him. “Although he had offered no resistance, Officer Brian
McElhaney put his knees into Mr. Drummond’s back and placed the weight of his
body on him. [Officer Christopher Ned] also put his knees and placed the weight
of his body on him, except that he had one knee on Mr. Drummond’s neck,” the
Drummond v. City of Anaheim trial transcript noted. Drummond “repeatedly told
the officers that he could not breathe and that they were choking him.” One
eyewitness testified, “The officers were laughing during the course of these
events.”
The 9th Circuit Court concluded in 2003: “The compression
asphyxia that resulted appears with unfortunate frequency in the reported
decisions of the federal courts, and presumably occurs with even greater
frequency on the street.”
More than a decade later, it seems little has changed. Acts
of commission and omission by each of the many police who participated in or
witnessed Garner’s arrest represent not only individual culpability, but a
systemic failure of training or compliance.
It was “all the police [on the scene], not just one police
officer, that would have caused the obstruction to breathing,” forensic expert
Michael Baden told Fox News.
By blaming only the chokehold, Pantaleo’s fellow officers
and much of the media threw one cop under a bus that carries a heavy cargo of
ignorance, aggression, profiling, and needed reform.
The NYPD officers who petulantly turned their backs on the
mayor and held work slowdowns added to the impression that the force is out of
control, and left the public justifiably wary of trusting police with their
lives.
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