“The Daily Show” dropped all traces of comedy from its opening Wednesday night as host Jon Stewart spoke to viewers directly about the case of Eric Garner.
“I don’t know, I honestly don’t know what to say,” Stewart said of the grand jury decision not to indict a white New York City police officer who placed Garner, who was black, in a chokehold. The city’s medical examiner ruled it a homicide.
“If comedy is tragedy plus time, I need more fucking time,” he said. “But I would really settle for less fucking tragedy to be honest with you.”
NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo put Garner, 43, in a chokehold after he allegedly was caught selling loose cigarettes. The incident was caught on video.
The news follows another grand jury’s decision not to indict white ex-Ferguson, Mo. police Officer Darren Wilson in the killing of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown.
“We are definitely not living in a post-racial society,” Stewart went on, “and I can imagine there are a lot of people out there wondering how much of a society we’re living in at all.”
The host caught himself and quipped: “So that’s our show!”
“I don’t know what to say,” he repeated.
Watch the clip, courtesy of Comedy Central:
When Stewart is at a loss for words, we as a society have some serious problems.
Where do we go from here?
I really don’t know.
I know what to say. This is a load of horseshit. Since when did our police departments become infallible? these two decisions are the equivalent of telling police that they can do whatever they want without consequence. It is a green light for them to use brutality for no good reason. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Jon Stewart is at a loss for words, but I guess we can count on Joe Scarborough and minions to explain how black man = thug.
Eric Garner was a career petty criminal who’d experienced dozens of arrests, but had learned nothing from them. Yet another arrest was under way when, suddenly, Garner balked. “This ends here,” he shouted — as it turned out, tragically prophetic words — as he struggled with the arresting officer.
This was a bad decision by Garner. He suffered from a range of medical ailments — advanced diabetes, plus heart disease and asthma so severe that either malady might have killed him.
Still, he fought — and at one point during the struggle, a cop wrapped his arm around Garner’s neck.
That image was captured on bystander video and later presented as irrefutable evidence of an “illegal” chokehold and, therefore, grounds for a criminal indictment against the cop.
That charge fails, and here’s why.
First, while “chokeholds” are banned by NYPD regulation, they’re not illegal under state law when used by a cop during a lawful arrest. So much for criminal charges, given that nobody seriously disputes the legitimacy of the arrest.
Second, and this speaks to the common allegation that cops are treated “differently” than ordinary citizens in deadly-force cases: Indeed they are — and it is the law itself that confers the privilege.
The law gives cops the benefit of every reasonable doubt in the good-faith performance of their duties — and who would really have it any other way? Cops who need to worry about whether the slightest mishap — a minor misunderstanding that escalates to violence of any sort — might result in criminal charges and a prison term are not cops who are going to put the public’s interests first.
Finally, there is this: There were 228,000 misdemeanor arrests in New York City in 2013, the last year for which there are audited figures, and every one of them had at least the potential to turn into an Eric Garner-like case. None did.
It is an unfortunate fact that this is, sadly, a case where Mr. Garner was a victim of himself.