Watch the NYPD Choke a Guy to Death Over Alleged Black Market Cigarettes

Cellphone image via New York Daily News

Eric Garner, 43, said he was just breaking up a fight. New York Police Department officers said he was selling untaxed cigarettes and tried to arrest him. When he refused to cooperate, police jumped on the 400-pound Staten Island man, put him in a chokehold, and forced him to the sidewalk. He complained loudly that he couldn't breathe as a pack of police kept him held down. Then, according to the police, he went into cardiac arrest and died at Richmond University Medical Center.

The arrest was caught on video and has been posted by New York Daily News, who also spoke to Garner's wife. She and family members claimed he didn't have any cigarettes on him at the time of his arrest:

Officials confirmed that NYPD Internal Affairs officers launched an investigation Thursday night.

Records show Garner was due in court in October on three Staten Island cases, including charges of pot possession and possession or selling untaxed cigarettes.

Esaw Garner said her husband was unable to work because he suffered from a host of ailments, including chronic asthma, diabetes and sleep apnea.

Garner's mother, Gwen Carr, 65, added, "I want justice."

Watch the video here.

Reason writers have repeatedly made note that skyrocketing cigarette taxes have increased the size and scope of the black market for the little cancer sticks. Read about it here.

Comments

[alan_s]

"Watch the NYPD Choke a Guy to Death"

No thanks.

[WTF]

Because failing to pay taxes on a pack of smokes, or smoking a little pot, should be a death sentence. This is government regulation in a nutshell, and a fine example to any proggies who don't understand why government regulating every little thing is a bad idea.

[Vulgar Madman]

Not paying taxes is the worst crime you can commit.
/statist

[ULOST]

I would proffer that it was his valiant failure to submit. Resistance is futile, citizen.

[Mad Scientist]

You are mistaken about that. There are a number of progressives who want exactly this sort of outcome for anyone who fails to demonstrate proper fealty to the state. There's a reason they make excuses for communist regimes that have slaughtered millions of their citizens.

[WTF]

Unfortunately you're right.

[Warren's Strapon]

The wages of sin tax is death.

[ricbee]

At least it ruined deBlasio's day. He delayed his trip to Italy to kiss Al Sharpton's feet.

[Jordan]

And there's the Friday nut punch. Jesus Christ.

[Swiss Servator, Alles Klar]

Well, sloopy started us off with a few, now the staff of H7R want to finish us off.

[Matrix]

Every day a new nut punch!

[Hugh Akston]

Garner's mother, Gwen Carr, 65, added, "I want justice."

Would you settle for a six-figure payout and no admission of wrongdoing?

[Bobarian]

Cause that's the best you can hope for.

[croaker]

Which is why not a fuck is given when some NYPD shitstain stops a bullet.

[Warty]

Hey look, some pigs who have no idea how to grapple with someone. This is my shocked face.

[Doghouse Reilly]

What the actual living fuck.

[Ska]

Choked the living fuck out of the poor bastard. Sorry, I can only offer this recently dead fuck.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

You know, before I read Reason, I was more positive about our boys in blue.

Now I always wear a protective cup before looking at these police stories.

[Swiss Servator, Alles Klar]

I worked with too many to have a positive view - but I am more wary now.

[ricbee]

Police have gone wild since 9-11 & receive not even a mild rebuke for murder.

[SForza]

Which is what this was. Just a straight-up murder.

[BiMonSciFiCon]

This story makes me want to stay away from the Internet and pretend nothing like this ever happens. Jesus fucking Christ.

Will anything else happen?

[Andrew S.]

Rhetorical question, I'll assume?

[Swiss Servator, Alles Klar]

No worries!

Officials confirmed that NYPD Internal Affairs officers launched an investigation Thursday night.

I am sure that justice....

Sorry, I can't even finish satire or parody or anything about this.

[Suicidy]

Hey now! This sort of thing is frowned upon.

[ricbee]

IE here in Corrupticut is known as the"Coverup Division."

[Scott S.]

Stay tuned! There's actually good drug war news today, too. Jacob Sullum is on it.

[Episiarch]

Scott's just lying to us to set us up for MEGA-NUT-PUNCH. We're on to you, Scott!

[Jordan]

I'm not removing my cup until I see it.

[sarcasmic]

Garner's mother, Gwen Carr, 65, added, "I want justice."

Better get religion and some faith in spiritual justice, because there isn't any in this world.

[WTF]

Oh, the taxpayers may end up giving her some cash, but that's about it.

[MegaloMonocle]

Yet another example to show to people who don't understand that saying "there otta be a law" means they are calling for violence to be applied to their fellows. The proper answer to "There otta be a law against X" is "So you think people who do X should have their property taken and should be subject to arrest and imprisonment and should be at risk of being killed by law enforcement?"

[sarcasmic]

Yet another example to show to people who don't understand that saying "there otta be a law" means they are calling for violence to be applied to their fellows.

I dunno. I think a lot of people when they say "there aught to be a law" are saying "I wish I could beat the shit out of someone for doing that, but I can't. So let's make a law so the cops can."

[Idle Hands]

Agreed, well anyway that's what I mean when I say it.

[Robert]

No, I'm afraid not. This is worse. This is police behavior that is regardless of the excuse of law X. Apparently they'd already decided based on previous encounters that this was somebody they could fuck with given any provocation. Apparently there had been a disturbance and this guy was on the scene, so he could be linked in some way to violence. You could abolish all the victimless crime laws and it wouldn't help cases like this.

[sarcasmic]

"Watch the NYPD Choke a Guy to Death Over Alleged Black Market Cigarettes For Failure to Obey"

It always comes down to failure to obey.

[Robert]

But there was no indication he failed to obey anything. It went from him arguing to them moving in for the kill.

[Suicidy]

Because LEOturds are exclusively control freak adrenalin junkies.

[Warty]

OT: today in punching news: a guy got punched.

[WTF]

The father actually showed admirable restraint. I might have killed the guy.

[InfiniteRecursion]

Your name sums this up nicely.

[jesse.in.mb]

And robbed him of the joys of being a beatable kiddy-diddler in the prison system?

The father would've done him a favor by killing him.

[WTF]

You're right, jesse, I just don't know if I could have restrained myself.

[Idle Hands]

is that actually true?

[Idle Hands]

that stereotype I mean. I hear it all the time, but how would people in gen pop even know what you did?

[jesse.in.mb]

how would people in gen pop even know what you did?

Dickish officers? You admit it in a moment of weakness? You're a terrible liar?

[OneOut]

An inmate beat a jailed priest to death back when the Catholic priest scandal was fresh in the news.

[ULOST]

Yeah, that ole' moral relativism motivating scumbags to harm other scumbags in the name of righteous moral superiority. Oh, that sweet redemption.

[jesse.in.mb]

He looks kinda whimpy, I'm pretty sure he'll get victimized a lot in prison whether the child molesters are targets in prisons thing is true or not.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

"Frolander was treated at an area hospital and allegedly told police "I'm guilty," when questioned."

At least that pervert scumbag has some integrity, unlike the cop who was caught stealing on video and still copped an Alford plea.

[Matrix]

In Californistan, the rapist would be a victim, and the father would be treated for aggravated assault.

[Matrix]

arrested* -treated

[Idle Hands]

I think I roll the dice with a trial by jury here.

[silverfang789]

State sanctioned murder; that's what it is.

[Square]

"family members claimed he didn't have any cigarettes on him at the time of his arrest"

If he *had*, well . . .

[Matrix]

In other things I've read, they said he had broken up a fight. That's when the police came to him.

In America, the police will decry people for not interceding in fights or robberies and such and say "this just proves how far we have fallen as a society."

If you do intercede, they straight up murder your ass.

So, the choice is yours. Support moral decay or get murdered!

[Lady Bertrum]

As the 8 cops wrestled the guy to the ground, one of them using a chokehold, he wheezed-out, "I can't breath. I can't breath."

Gee I wonder why.

Good to see out tax dollars being utilized addressing the public menace that is black market cigarettes.

[BuSab Agent]

There's no reason I can think of for a guy with a literal ton* of costumed pork sitting on his neck and chest to have trouble breathing /sarc.

*8 tax feeders @ 250 lbs each

[waffles]

Well, his real crime was being an obese smoker. A fat smelly man who was avoiding taxes. As disgusting blob witha host of ailments, including chronic asthma, diabetes and sleep apnea was ripe for the culling. We can applaud the NYPD for such cleansing of our socialist utopia.

Okay, I just made my self sick.

[Andr? Marrou]

horrid

[BiMonSciFiCon]

Taxes are the price we pay for civilization legalized murder.

[Chumby]

"I don't always abuse the innocent people I arrest by ramming a beer bottle up their ass. But when I do, I always use Dos Equis."

- The Most Interesting Cop in the World

[CatoTheElder]

Libertarians have long argued that taxes are coerced under threat of violence.

Here is an open-and-shut case.

[Robert]

No. This had nothing to do with taxes. The only reason taxes got mentioned was that they'd had a previous encounter over taxes, so the path of least resistance was to say they were there to question him re the same thing as the previous time. They'd apparently decided over some time prior to that day that they'd enjoy killing someone, and that this guy would be a suitable foil. I can see no other reason for the sequence of events in that video & sound track. They didn't try to arrest him, they just went in for the kill after distracting him for a while.

[Andr? Marrou]

I wonder if the cops have trouble sleeping at night.

[sloopyinva (previously -inca)]

One or two of them may have pulled something when they committed this murder, but I'm sure they were given the necessary meds to get over those,pains.

Emotionally, they probably slept better that night than any other in their life.

[alan_s]

If they do, it's because they're thinking of the one that got away.

[Idle Hands]

Only because they missed an opportunity to use their guns.

[sloopyinva (previously -inca)]

Taxes Innocent people being choked to death by a group of armed goons is the price we pay for a civilized society.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, ca. 2014

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Why all the Holmes-hate? He was the Greatest Judge in the History of This or Any Other Universe!

[Notorious G.K.C.]

"Brandeis, you idiot, someone has stolen our tent!"

[croaker]

Yeah, the one that wrote the "shout fire in a crowded theater" screed every fucktard uses to suppress free speech.

[Marcus S.Turner]

Well, he did recant it almost immediately and it was overturn by the Court.

[Kaptious Kristen]

Statism, in whatever form, is an inherently violent ideology. What really irks me are the progs who are all hippy-dippy-peace-and-love. But they would still kill people and lock them in cages for not demonstrating the proper obeisance to the State.

[Jorono]

When do we reach the tipping point? Does it have to be kittens, are dogs not cute enough? Do people just not matter?

Fuck!

[Pierre]

And my statist friends mock me when I tell them that government comes to us at the point of a gun. Silly me. It also comes you you via lethal choke slams.

[jmomls]

Forgetting the cops for a moment:

*Esaw Garner said her husband was unable to work because he suffered from a host of ailments, including chronic asthma, diabetes and sleep apnea.*

He couldn't "work", but he could sell black market cigs and weed?

Mmmm-hmmm. Let me guess, also collecting a slew of "benefits", too, while he's doing all this black market stuff, right? Couldn't he have stood in a cigarette shop and done the same thing?

[Suicidy]

No jobs ate the rate Obama and his fellow travelers are taxing that shit. This is what people do when there are no jobs.

God Damn Obama
God Damn the democrats

[ULOST]

Yeah, so he could pay the salaries of those who would eventually murder him. That selfish bastard. NYPD cannot charge him for 120 bullets (8 x 15 rounds) so maybe they can for the dry cleaning to remove the sweat stain from the thugs uniform.

With the labor pool so tight he could have had multiple job offers like that.

[Suicidy]

Where's that faggot commie Tony to back up his statist buddies? Fucking squid needs to take a beating here for backing these scumbags.

[straffinrun]

Get 40k in bennies from the govt=hero. Pay 40k in taxes but owed 45k=inmate.

[chris3145]

Ive worked as a mental health worker for 20yrs and have managed with the help of others take down put into 4 point restraints (not just handcuff) 100's of psychotic violent patients over the years the worst patient injury was when a patient broke his hand punching me in the face...lol

every time i read a story like this where they say "that level of force was required to subdue the suspect" I know its a lie.....i have to do a restraints 3-4times a day.....and my psych patients are a lot more dangerous then pot smoking tax evaders

[JD3]

To kill a man who poses no threat to your own life...is the definition of evil. His life was taken from him for no good reason.
Wait, what's that you say?
He had some pot on him AND sold cigarettes under the government's nose??
Where was the Blackhawk?
SWAT Team?
DEA?
This is clearly a case of big-government, police-state, UNDERkill.

Sarcasm aside...RIP man.

[ULOST]

Jack booted thug#1: What do you mean he's dead!? Mf'er! What do I do with this plunger now?

[AD-RtR/OS!]

Caesar must have his gelt.