The news that NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo will not be charged in the chokehold death of Eric Garner raises a slew of hot button issues about race, police brutality and more. But here’s a more mundane issue that isn’t the only issue and maybe not even the main one but is a pretty big one nonetheless: Why was Garner placed in a chokehold at all?
Some of my take on this comes from growing up in the Greater Los Angeles area in the 1970s and 1980s when the Gates-era LAPD’s use of the chokehold was an on-going controversy and where the maneuver was eventually banned. But the gist is that when you put people in chokeholds a lot of people end up dying. It’s relatively rare obviously. But it happens. And what’s key is that it doesn’t happen with great predictability. Mostly people are quickly immobilized. And sometimes they die. And that shouldn’t terribly surprising since the maneuver cuts off blood and oxygen to the brain, which can lead to a bad chain of events fairly quickly.
Then Police Commissioner Ray Kelly actually banned chokeholds in 1993. But it’s an NYPD policy, not the law. And I’m told the issue has been left fuzzy by the lack of a precise definition of what constitutes a chokehold.
NYC Mayor de Blasio, whose election was based in significant measure on opposition to heavy-handed policing tactics, a bit surprisingly opposes making chokeholds illegal. I’m not sure there’s any good reason for that opposition. I can’t think of one. But if it’s true that it’s better handled as departmental policy, the policy doesn’t seem to be terribly effective.
Police shouldn’t be using chokeholds. People tend to die when you do.
