Rant #1,335: No Indictment

Once again, a white police officer has not received an indictment in a case where a black man was killed.

And it happened in my neck of the woods, which brings it up close and personal to myself and everyone who lives in the New York Metropolitan area.

In this case, Eric Garner, another person with a criminal history as long as your arm, was put into a choke hold when he was apprehended for selling cigarettes on a street in the New York City borough of Staten Island.

He had asthma, could not breath, told the five officers who were on top of him that he could not breath, and he died.

All of it was recorded on a cell phone, and honestly, I personally thought that he officer in question would be indicted for reckless endangerment, the lesser of the charges.

He was not.

Some people say that based on the video alone, this was a total miscarriage of justice.

And if you simply take the video alone, it probably was.

However, a jury heard testimony of 22 witnesses, saw other evidence that the public has not seen, heard from the police officer that applied the hold, and came up with no indictment.

What happened?

Again, I am not a lawyer, but it appears that the 22 witnesses may have painted a different picture of what happened to Garner than what the video showed.

And the police officer must have made an extremely compelling argument about why he had to apply such a hold on Garner.

The video showed the last few moments of Garner's life. But what precipitated what happened before the video was shot?

Was there just cause for the police to act the way they did?

Did Garner physically threaten them, either with his words or by actually having a physical altercation with them?

Did he do anything else to make the police act the way they did?

Evidently so, because no indictment was made. The feds are now looking into this situation, but the proof of the pudding can be found in what the witnesses said happened prior to the video being shot.

The police do not go out to kill people, but they will if such an act is necessary.

In this case, unlike the Ferguson case, there was no reason for Garner to have died.

But what were his actions before the video was made that led the policeman to apply such a hold on Garner?

I do believe that that is where we find out what led to this unfortunate situation.

This case is so different than what happened in Ferguson, but it will be lumped together, of course, as situations where police may have not have used their best judgment.

But did they actually use the only judgment that they possibly could, under these circumstances, in each of the cases?

I do believe in Ferguson that the officer was threatened with bodily harm, and he did make the correct choice, the only choice he could make under the circumstances.

In New York, the whole thing from top to bottom was unfortunate, but evidently, the evidence found no reason to indict.

Yes, I was quite surprised that the police officer was not indicted on the lesser charge, but he was not indicted, so the evidence must have pointed in his favor in some way, shape or form.

Let the feds look into it now. I am sure they will find something that the local court could not find.

And that is what scares me, and should scare you, too.

They are going to be under intense pressure to find something, and with that pressure over their heads, you can bet that this case is one that is far, far from over.

[And the one constant in the two cases is again the Rev. Al Sharpton, who feeds off these incidents like the leech that he is.

He is truly the Martin Luther King of the Bizzarro World, and his mere presence makes his ignorant flock seem so righteous.

Please, please, put this tax evader away in jail, where he belongs, not sitting with the President of the United States, who doesn't appear to have a clue that all of this nonsense is going on during his watch, and that makes him somewhat responsible for the lax environment we currently live in.

And if people are calling for New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton's head, how about Mayor Bill deBlasio's head too? The Garner incident happened under his watch. I get the increasing suspicion that deBlasio is being given a bye on matters like this because he married a black woman and has a bi-racial family. He used the race card to perfection to get into office, and I do believe that people are willing to forgive and forget with him because of his living situation. Believe me, I hope that I am wrong, and both Bratton and deBlasio are held to the same level of responsibility in this and other similar matters.]