Garner Incident-if you can say "I can't breathe," guess what you can breathe

[McBell]

I have asthma. I also remember back before Paul Bernardo was apprehended, some of my friends joked that the sketches in the paper of the Scarborough Rapist kinda looked like me.

Would the police have been justified in killing me?

Did you resist arrest and your resisting arrest was a direct contributing factor of your death?

 

[Skwim]

I am not implying that at all. The police went too far. They could have restrained him, if they had to, without choking him.

There was nothing in your statement in post 191 to which I referred to that mentioned choking :

"Without bringing race into it, I can say that the police were wrong to hold onto this guy for a misdemeanor. The ONLY people who need to held down are those are dangerous, and everything points to the fact that this man was not dangerous.
​

Moving the goal posts isn't cricket.

 

[metis]

Resisting arrest does not by itself warrant killing a suspect-- only if there's a eminent danger to one's self or to others, and this does not apply in the Garner incident.

 

[ChristineES]

There was nothing in your statement in post 191 to which I referred to that mentioned choking :

"Without bringing race into it, I can say that the police were wrong to hold onto this guy for a misdemeanor. The ONLY people who need to held down are those are dangerous, and everything points to the fact that this man was not dangerous.
​

Moving the goal posts isn't cricket.

I think you could have guessed what I meant, even if I didn't mention it. Sometimes we have a thought that comes faster than we can actually either say it or write it and may leave something out. We all do it.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Did you resist arrest and your resisting arrest was a direct contributing factor of your death?

I wasn't arrested at all. Not being dead, the question about contributing factors is moot.

... but since you bring it up, would it be responsible for a police officer to use techniques that can kill someone with a common health condition (e.g. asthma) when lethal force wouldn't normally be called for? Should it be a surprise to the police that some of the people they arrest have asthma or other health conditions?

 

[Storm]

Perhaps everyone else is silent or dismissive because they recognise that what you percieve to be personal attacks aren't actually so. Personal attacks are against the rules, and I'm confident that, if properly reported, the mods will together review the case in a fair and honest manner and respond accordingly. Disagreeing with you isn't a personal attack. You could argue that having a nasty tone while disagreeing might be personal, but considering that's usually a mutual two way street, you would be subject to the same penalties.



But when other people flare up and take the same tone as you, you regard it as a personal attack. So it's alright for you to be displeased with others when they get heated, but it's not alright for people to be displeased with you when you get heated?

Did you follow the conversation she was talking about?

 

[Skwim]

Here's an interesting comment on the choke holding aspect of the incident.

"Eric Garner’s death was ruled a homicide due to a chokehold and chest compression. However, while most media outlets have been focused on the chokehold, many have ignored the dangerous, yet overlooked, chest compression known as Restraint-Related Positional Asphyxia. This has largely been a concern of mental health care workers throughout the United States, who have to occasionally restrain patients who have become a danger to themselves or others. It came to the national light several years ago after a number of deaths during restraints at hospitals and police departments.

I’ve worked in mental health for six years and I teach verbal and physical crisis prevention to both behavioral health staff and emergency department personnel. It occurs, not from a “chokehold,” as seen in the video. Indeed, it doesn’t appear that the officer held onto Garner’s throat long enough to directly cause his death. Rather, restraint-related positional asphyxia is the result of the patient being face down on the ground or having someone put his weight on the individual’s chest, leaving the patient unable to expand his or her chest to inhale. In this way (and if this is truly the case), the death could be ruled a homicide (death caused by another human being) without being intentional murder. Officer Daniel Pantaleo is seen in the video first putting Garner in a chokehold and the group of officers wrestling him to the ground. However, once face-down on the concrete to put the cuffs on, Pantaleo is kneeling on Garner’s upper back and head. It was at this point that Garner began to say he couldn’t breathe.

One of the arguments made was that the chokehold did not cause his death because he was able to speak and say, “I can’t breathe.” In the video he was making the statement that he couldn’t breathe after the officer had released the hold and he was being handcuffed face-down, with several officers on top of him. He would not have been able to speak if he were in a chokehold that cut off his airway, but he would have been able to say it if his death was due to chest compression. He was able to force breath from his lungs across his vocal chords, but he was not able to get any air back in. The same way a mouse can still squeak as a boa constrictor squeezes the life out him, Garner was able to make desperate pleas. But every time he did, his time grew shorter and shorter. A chokehold can either cut off air intake through the windpipe or cut off the carotid artery, sending blood to the brain. You can go unconscious quickly, but once it is released, you can continue to breathe normally (it happens in MMA all the time). Not so during an arrest, which can often take several minutes as the officers restrain, cuff, clear the area, and figure out what they are going to do next. With restraint-related asphyxia, it is not like holding your breath, but rather it is having no breath at all because every bit of air has been forced out. This has happened in numerous cases of hospital restraints across the country and has spurned legislation to curb its practice, which is one of the reasons I and other instructors educate mental health care workers in how to properly and safely restrain patients.

The police, however, put a suspect face-down in order to handcuff him. Whether or not this can be avoided through new tactics, I don’t know. To some degree it seems necessary in order to facilitate the arrest, but the dangers are amply demonstrated."
source​

 

[Skwim]

Did I use the word "deliberately" in my post?

Didn't you see the word "implying" in my question?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Didn't you see the word "implying" in my question?

Fine: no, I'm not implying that anyone deliberately killed anyone.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Considering the discussion about chest compression, I think it's a good time to revisit the OP:

How do we know this? Because during the hold Garner kept saying "I can't breathe, I can't breathe".

Well, guess what? If you can say repeatedly "I can't breathe", you can breathe.

Breathing involves exhaling and inhaling. I take CMike's statement to mean "if you can exhale, you must be able to inhale, too."

Does anyone here agree with this? Does anyone have a different interpretation?

 

[ChristineES]

We know that the police were NOT trying to kill the guy, we do know that they used too much force for the crime. When I was a child, I saw across the street from my house, a man being dragged on the ground by the police- at least 3. I don't know what the man's crime was, this was 40 years ago. The point that is that it traumatized me. I was 8 years old. It made a little afraid of the police.
I never knew if those police officers were right or wrong in what they did. If it was traumatizing to a little child who just witnessed it, I think it would be much more traumatizing to someone who may have experienced it in the past.
Does any one know if Mr. Garner had been manhandled by police before this incident. If he was, it might explain why he resisted arrested.

 

[metis]

No matter how one may want to play with this, the fact of the matter is that Garner was choked, it led to his death, and any kind of choke-hold is forbidden by the guidelines of the NYPD.

 

[4consideration]

***Mod Post***

This thread has been moved to General Debates.​

 

[Skwim]

No matter how one may want to play with this, the fact of the matter is that Garner was choked, it led to his death, and any kind of choke-hold is forbidden by the guidelines of the NYPD.

No, this isn't "the fact of the matter." Please read post #207.

 

[Father Heathen]

0

Did you follow the conversation she was talking about?

Multiple conversations, and yes.

Again, personal attacks are against the rules, so if they are indeed occuring, they need to be brought to the mod team's attention so that they can address it.

 

[metis]

No, this isn't "the fact of the matter." Please read post #207.

I did, and that is what I was responding to. Choke-holds are not allowed, and the coroners report cited that as the main cause of death that also involved some other factors. The fact that there were other factors doesn't change the fact that the officer was in the wrong by choking Garner--period. The only real question should have been what to charge the officer with, and that is somewhat variable since it would not be clear-cut.

 

[Skwim]

I did, and that is what I was responding to. Choke-holds are not allowed, and the coroners report cited that [choke holds] as the main cause of death that also involved some other factors.

"Main cause"? Not according to the medical examiner's spokeswoman.

From Nowhere Man's link in post 5:

"The cause of Garner's death was "compression of neck (choke hold), compression of chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police," said Julie Bolcer, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office.
Acute and chronic bronchial asthma, obesity and hypertensive cardiovascular disease were listed as contributing conditions . . . . "

So there were three primary factors (no main cause)

1) compression of neck
2) compression of chest
3) prone positioning​

and three contributing factors

1) acute and chronic bronchial asthma
2) obesity
3) hypertensive cardiovascular disease​

 

[metis]

"Main cause"? Not according to the medical examiner's spokeswoman.

From Nowhere Man's link in post 5:

"The cause of Garner's death was "compression of neck (choke hold), compression of chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police," said Julie Bolcer, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office.
Acute and chronic bronchial asthma, obesity and hypertensive cardiovascular disease were listed as contributing conditions . . . . "

So there were three primary factors (no main cause)

1) compression of neck
2) compression of chest
3) prone positioning​

and three contributing factors

1) acute and chronic bronchial asthma
2) obesity
3) hypertensive cardiovascular disease​

But the choke hold was the first action taken and it was sustained even when the suspect was on the ground. Yes, there were other subsequent actions that seemingly contributed to his death, but the crucial point still remains that the choke-hold was done illegally.

 

[freethinker44]

Well it looks like he couldn't actually breathe because he's dead now.

No, no, he died because he was over weight. It was just a weird coincidence that he happened to die from natural causes at the exact moment he was being assaulted by police.

 

[gnomon]

These are my thoughts after watching the video.

Garner resisted arrest. If you resist arrest you aren't going to be treated gently.

The headlock/chockehold or whatever it was didn't stop Garner from breathing.

How do we know this? Because during the hold Garner kept saying "I can't breathe, I can't breathe".

Well, guess what? If you can say repeatedly "I can't breathe", you can breathe.

He died mainly because of his health conditions; asthma, heart issues, etc.

I think the moral of the story is that if you have health problems, don't resist arrest.

Let the flames begin.

One only need to exhale to speak. The intake of breath is not required for speaking. As well, if you have ever suffered from a pulmonary disorder like I have you can easily find yourself voicing complaints of breathing while not processing the necessary chemicals from air required for breathing. Woke up one night thinking I was having a heart attack but it was pain and shortness of breath from pulmonary sarcoidosis. I could speak but breathing was a painful phenomenon.

You're oversimplified concept is easily refuted. Namely by the fact that someone with a pre-existing condition was subjected to an illegal chokehold that constricted his windpipe, as well as the subsequent restricting of his lungs from being compressed, that led to his death.

What happens in certain lung disorders is that although an intake of breath can be taken the process of oxygenation, or breathing, doesn't occur. An individual even without having their windpipe constrained can take in air but if the biological process of transferring oxygen to the blood cells is not occurring they are not actually breathing. They are merely performing a motor function of the diaphragm intaking air without a life process taking place. Speaking only requires the exhalation of air for the vocal membranes to provide a vibration among the exhaling air we call speech.

There are numerous lung conditions suffered by millions who could easily explain this to you. Asthmatics, black lung, pulmonary sarcoidosis, lung cancer, COPD, etc.

No, you're the one pretending race is irrelevant.

I don'tknowwhat a poverty pimp is

Storm!!!!!!!