Learning from the Tragedy of Eric Garner

It’s so unfortunate that incidents with police seem only to become national controversies when there’s an opportunity for them to be worked into the grievance narrative.  That nearly guarantees that we won’t learn the important lessons from them.

Having not dug deeply into the case of Eric Garner’s death, I won’t second guess the claims of either the people who found no reason to indict the police officer whose actions led to his death or those who believe that decision was wrong.  The most-complete video of the incident that I’ve been able to find shows that the officers had a lengthy buildup during which they could have deescalated the situation.  However, the video misses the moments leading up to the officers’ decision to subdue Garner, and it looks like the edit was deliberate.

That’s a critical omission.  If the police simply decided that they’d talked long enough, the take down was excessive.  If Garner made some aggressive action, it may have been more reasonable for the police to conclude that he was becoming a threat.

Of course, another omission that would make a big difference is the series of previous interactions that Garner had with local police.  If they were harassing him, then his response to them this time would be even more understandable; if previous interactions involved illegal activity and some degree of threat, then that would make the officers’ decision more understandable.  There’s also been a gray area in the reporting regarding why the police were there in the first place and why they focused on Garner.

That gets to what ought to be one of two central lessons from the incident, in my view.  Glenn Reynolds puts it very well: “When you pass a law, however trivial, you are providing an opportunity for police to use lethal force.”  Garner was suspected of selling loose cigarettes without proper tax compliance.  The law never should have created the incentives and situation that would lead to police feeling the need to subdue a guy for such a thing.

At this point (in some localities more than others), any given person going about the business of his or her life has a pretty good chance of being in violation of some law or other.  We increasingly live in a compliance state, where “crime” more and more means simply failing to follow the government’s broad and complicated rules for our lives.  Whether authorities are biased against you for some reason or they just err while enforcing the law, that creates a lot of opportunity for oppression and even killing.

The second central lesson ought to be that police should be trained to prioritize deescalation.  It has to be OK for police to back down, rather than necessary for the people they stop to back down.  Even with the shortened video, one can see that there was plenty of opportunity for the police to reduce the tension and even to walk away.  It does not appear that they had any immediate evidence of the supposed crime, and the presumption in such cases should be that they end the conflict.

Another bit of training that looks like it would be wise to implement is basic CPR.  From the second video of the incident and from a similar video that I’ve seen recently (but can’t find immediately), police officers could use new protocol for handling incidents when somebody they’ve subdued becomes unresponsive.  The police stand around trying to assess if Garner has a pulse.  Why didn’t they take off his handcuffs and trying to resuscitate him?  The one officer who tells the videotaping spectator to “give him some air” gives the impression that they didn’t want anybody to know what had happened.

Maybe they fear the reaction of spectators (with cameras) who catch on to what’s happening, but hiding it only creates the impression that they know they were acting beyond their authority.  That’s especially true when the scene is otherwise peaceful and there’s a large presence of officers, as in the Garner case.

Republican Congressman from New York Peter King has argued on behalf of the police, saying they couldn’t have known Garner had asthma and a heart condition.  However true that is, it ought to be an assumption built into every law: the police on the street can’t know important information about the people with whom they interact.  That’s why the first principle ought to be that the people are the priority, not the laws that they may or may not be breaking.

The other night, Fox News talk host Bill O’Reilly’s broke out statistics suggesting that there is not an epidemic of police officers killing black men.  I have no reason to doubt his numbers, but even if O’Reilly’s numbers are incorrect, and there is an epidemic of police incidents with black men, then they will most direct benefit from reductions in potential crimes and improvements in policing.  Focusing on the races of the people involved directs attention to theoretical biases and proposed fixes that won’t address the underlying problem.

It does give activists and grievance hucksters a platform, though, and allows cynical politicians to divide the people, perhaps with an eye toward conquering us.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in The Ocean State Current, including text, graphics, images, and information are solely those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the views and opinions of The Current, the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity, or its members or staff. The Current cannot be held responsible for information posted or provided by third-party sources. Readers are encouraged to fact check any information on this web site with other sources.

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