Cite?
Annoying as all fuck. I totally understand the Pitting on that basis; this particular instance is minor and merely frustrating, but his overall posting history is frustration piled on frustration, all with the same MO.
What?!? Get out!
For the umpteenth time, it doesn’t make any difference if the police arrested him because they saw him sell (and the police officer was really pointing to the buyer at 0:34 of the video) or they arrested him because store owners reported him selling (again). That is a trivial point that makes no difference whatever. It changes nothing. It neither increases nor decreases the culpability, if any, of the police; it makes Garner’s arrest neither more nor less justified, and it has no effect at all on the justification or lack of it with regard to the chokehold, pindown, or other circumstances of the arrest.
Like I said, it’s annoying, and nothing more.
Regards,
Shodan
I agree. doorhinge should stop repeating it. When he does, it’s appropriate to challenge and mock him for it.
No, it’s not appropriate, since the distinction is meaningless. It just makes you look petty to keep harping on it.
Regards,
Shodan
I disagree. I kind of see it like the “prove we’ve executed innocent people” thing you’re currently harping about – doorhinge should clarify what he’s saying to something like “either cops witnessed him lawbreaking or they were responding to a report of lawbreaking from others nearby”, just as the poster claiming we know we’ve executed multiple innocent people recently should clarify his statement to something like “there are very good reasons to suspect we may have executed multiple people recently whose guilt was questionable”. It’s reasonable to challenge these assertions.
doorhinge’s scenario is that the cops have definitive proof that Garner committed a crime i.e. they witnessed it. Based on that they move to arrest him. He resisted arrest …
other scenario is that there was no real evidence of Garner’s guilt other than some report, a guy (buyer?) in a red shirt [was HE arrested? it is illegal to buy loosies IIRC] and the fact that Garner is a career criminal in the cigarette bootlegging biz. Based on that they move to arrest him. He resisted arrest …
So beyond the moral difference, at the heart of the issue is whether or not the grand jury should have indited the officers. The provocation for the police to effect an arrest may have influenced me. Given the second scenario, I may look at the officers as the ones who escalate the situation from questioning to harrassment to arrest. And if I think Garner was innocent, it certainly changes who the aggressor is in the resisting arrest argument.
tl;dr version: If the police didn’t actually see him committing the crime, their actions seem very aggressive and put the chokehold in a brand new light for me as a grand juror.
The police had enough cause to detain Garner whether they saw him sell or if they received reports of him selling. Like I said - it makes no difference either way.
Regards,
Shodan
No, because it makes no difference either way. You’re just being petty.
Regards,
Shodan
I think bridges are too high class for him. There must be a species of troll that hang out under outhouse toilets or something
But it does make a difference! In the “Kissing your boyfriend while black…” thread, Hentor the Barbarian offers
and Bricker later agrees.
As I said, a different jurisdiction, but potentially a critical distinction. Completed misdemeanor and the police actions are illegal from the beginning, there is no legal basis for a detention for investigation. Felony, the investigation was legal, and the chokehold was simply an illegal/not sanctioned technique in an otherwise supportable action.
None of this, of course, changes the fact that doorhinge wouldn’t use a good cite if it fell off his bridge and landed on his keyboard.
There actually is a difference – in that thread, we aren’t just talking about legality, but also general concepts like morality and justice, and doorhinge’s insistence that the police witnessed a crime is part of his defense of the general moral and just nature of the cops’ actions. It’d be reasonable to challenge either way – an unsupported assertion is an unsupported assertion – but this makes it more integral to his argument.
I don’t wish to get involved in parsing doorhinge’s posts, but I feel compelled to clarify that, in New York, the police can make an arrest for a misdemeanor that they did not themselves witness. Compare New York Criminal Procedure Law 140.25(1)(a) and (1)(b). Thus, the police could have had a legal basis for the arrest based on a report from a shop keeper or some other witness.
It makes the detainment neither more nor less moral or just if the police did it because they saw Garner sell cigarettes, or if they received a report of Garner selling cigarettes. So it is not anything like integral to his argument.
Regards,
Shodan
I think it could be different dependent on what the officers saw, but more importantly doorhinge seems to consider it integral to his argument, because he mentioned it over and over again.
But I think we can let it rest. I understand you think it’s petty, but I’m not going to take your word for it. If a bunch of other Dopers whose opinions I respected (not that I don’t necessarily respect yours) chimed in and agreed with you, I might reconsider such arguments.
Bullshit. He’s bringing it up. He thinks it matters, or he wouldn’t be insisting that Garner actually was committing a crime. The entire pro-cop argument rests on the idea that he was committing a crime.
It’s not petty to pit the guy for pulling a Smapti–the cops tried to arrest him, so there must’ve been evidence of a crime, no matter what evidence to the contrary. It’s a disgusting way of looking at the world. It’s full of logical errors.
If your opponent made any similar errors, you’d jump all over them. You do it all the time, even when it wasn’t actually relevant.
But this time it is, because his whole argument rests on the fact that Garner was committing a crime.
Even you admit that the use of force was wrong here. Why are you defending someone making a bad argument for why it was acceptable? Honestly, the only reason I can come up with is that you are defending your friend or at least someone you tend to agree with in other situations.
doorhinge is making bad, illogical arguments to defend an immoral outcome. There’s nothing remotely petty about calling him out for that.
No it doesn’t. As mentioned, whether the cops detained him because they witnessed Garner selling, or because some store owner reported him selling, makes no difference and does not affect the argument at all.
Regards,
Shodan
Yep. I think he’s making it a critical part of his argument, but even if it’s not, refuting bad, illogical arguments is a big part of why I enjoy the Dope.
Interesting! Thank you. I’ll take your word, I don’t feel compelled to look up the statute nor any relevant case law.
It does strike me as strange that I could be arrested in NY (not merely detained for investigation, but arrested) on the uncorroborated testimony of some stranger that “I saw him do xxxxx!” Strange, and rather uncomfortable. I’ll drop this hijack of doorhinge’s pitting 
though.
(post shortened)
You’re being petty. I prefer to find out what actually happened that day.
That thread is so full of red herrings that it could open it’s own Red-Herrings-R-Us franchise. If you haven’t read the thread, you might be interested in the following.
Did you know:
- the Garner arrest took 1 minute and 10 seconds (or possibly longer?) based on the length of an edited video of the take down? The official police reports would show the actual time of this incident but those haven’t been released to the public. The Grand Jury would have had access to them before they made their decision not to indict.
- that some people expect Garner to still have illegal cigarettes on his person in spite of the possibility that Garner had sold the illegal cigarettes to a passerby, who had then walked away?
- that some people prefer to accept 3rd person accounts of incidents that the 3rd person could not possibly have witnessed?
- that some people believe that CPR should be preformed on people who are still breathing and have a pulse?
- that people who actually can not breathe, can’t talk?
- that Garner did not die from strangulation?
- that Garner died from cardiac arrest? The coroner indicates that Garner had several, serious, health issues and there were several police actions that could have contributed to Garner’s untimely death.
- that there was no damage to Garner’s windpipe or neck bones?
Do you also know:
- that a video exists that shows an officer responding to Garner’s question of to whom he had sold cigarettes, by pointing in the direction the buyer had traveled?
- that Garner resisted arrest?
- that a career criminal earns income from committing crimes?
- that some people don’t know the difference between an air choke and a blood choke? The initial hold used to subdue Garner was not a chokehold since Garner was able to speak. Instead it was one which produces pressure on the carotid sinus and vagus nerve, it was not asphyxia.
- that criminals don’t believe that societies laws apply to them?
- that police made a decision to gang tackle Garner instead of tazing, shooting, or clubbing him?
- that some people just hate cops?