U.S. Exceptionalism in Being a Police/Prison State

[eynon81]

[Indy]

TMI!

[Professor]

[Dylan]

Never watch porn. Ever.

[eynon81]

[Philly]

Anyway, re: the NYPD chokehold death, the vibe I'm getting here on the ground is that this story has real legs. Of course the standard pledge to require additional training has been issued already but where this goes next has to depend on what happens to the cops involved in the incident. They are on desk duty right now pending investigation rather than suspended which is enough to piss plenty of people off already. I don't see how the guy who did the chokehold doesn't get fired. Protocol specifically forbids chokeholds and there's nothing left to interpretation in the video that he did in fact use a chokehold.

What about criminal charges? I think if he didn't use a tactic explicitly prohibited by protocol he'd have a good chance of getting off with no charges or something very minor. But if you violate protocol resulting in the death of an unarmed, non-violent civilian, that's gotta be manslaughter right?

[John Galt]

New York Penal - Article 125 - § 125.25 Murder in the Second Degree

2. Under circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life,
he recklessly engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to
another person, and thereby causes the death of another person;

[Indy]

Just to clarify, there's a couple of choke holds out there--one that's safer and one like that guy used that's awful.

In a standard rear-naked choke you're wrapping your arm around the other person's neck and squeezing, the net result being that you're cutting off the blood supply to the brain and the person passes out. They're not suffocating and you're not crushing their throat--it's basically a sleeper hold. This is what you see in MMA all the time.

In this case, this guy appeared to have his forearm bone across the man's larynx, which is awful on so many levels--a) you could crush it, b) they probably can't breathe and c) yes they could still pass out from the cutoff of bloodflow. This is why PD's banned allowing using nightsticks to "choke" suspects--same idea.

On top of that, you had that guy kneeling on his neck, which is basically an even more extreme version of what i just described.

This is not how you subdue an unarmed man committing a non-violent offense with four of you present. This is how you kill the guy in the bathtub if you're Jason Bourne.

I don't know why they didn't just taze him--sure tasing isn't risk-free but it sure wasn't as extreme as this.

Plus, once the guy was face-down flattened out if you don't want him to move you control his hips--they should have been kneeling there (so he can't get to his knees) and not on his neck, for God's sake.

Remember: I know all this and I'm not even a cop. How come they don't?

[The Dharma Bum]

we should train cops how to do a suplex while we are at it.

That would be awesome

[eynon81]