# Why wasn't the police officer who killed Eric Garner indicted? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 4, 2014, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-the-police-officer-who-killed-eric-garner-indicted/706271 "2014-12-04T00:06:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-the-police-officer-who-killed-eric-garner-indicted/706271/201 "2014-12-05T03:28:01Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > For the benefit of non-Americans, a “loosie” is not a bag of heroin or anything like that. It is _ **a single tobacco cigarette** _ sold for a tiny amount of change. > > Yes, that’s right. Mr. Garner was arrested (and in the process killed) for selling tiny amounts of tobacco to poor people. In a city where billion-dollar fraudsters drive their Maseratis, immune from prosecution. Yes, people who do not commit crimes are immune from prosecution. They do have a lot in common with many of the police cases though, in that liberals definitely **want** non-criminal actions to be crime. In their furor of wanting, they fail to realize that wanting something doesn’t make it so, and refer to the crimes as though they are already on the books. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-the-police-officer-who-killed-eric-garner-indicted/706271/202 "2014-12-05T03:38:17Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > I bet cops look the other way all the time for “silly” crimes like selling loosies, and I wouldn’t fault them. And the nature of the crime should be a factor in how the “criminal” is detained, right? An unarmed man selling loosies who has done nothing aggressive to the police should not have been physically detained like that, at least not without some discussion or provocation. And “I can’t breathe” seems like a really good point to release a choke hold, even if we ignore the fact that one shouldn’t have been applied, period. > > This was a stunner to me. How could this not meet the low GJ threshold for some form of unlawful homicide? I will be very interested in what the details are if they’re released, because I can’t imagine what would have combined with that video to conclude “no indictment.” I can’t even come up with a hypothetical. We do know that the PBA and the cop’s lawyer have made a few claims which may have came out in the GJ. Namely, that the cop wasn’t using a choke hold at all, but a “take down taught at the academy” (PBA’s words), and Pantaleo’s attorney has disputed much of the official medical examiner’s report on Garner’s cause of death and has put forth the argument that it was not related to a choke hold at all. FWIW my read of the video was always that _if_ it was a choke hold (and it looks to me like it’s a rear naked choke) it doesn’t really seem likely that killed him. It was only applied at most 7-10 seconds, most likely less than that and most likely not fully applied. A “blood choke” that interrupts blood flow to the brain can cause unconsciousness very rapidly, that didn’t happen here as Garner didn’t initially lose consciousness. Such a choke can cause brain damage if applied for too long. However in the history of competitive judo and MMA, where blood chokes are common, I don’t believe a single person has ever died from one. An air choke generally takes much longer to render someone unconscious, but also can permanently damage the trachea in such a way that will cause death fairly quickly as well (strangulation, essentially.) But, I don’t believe the medical report actually showed the sort of tracheal trauma you’d expect if that happened. What I instead think happened is Garner died from positional asphyxia due to being pressed into the ground under his obese frame for too long, and then even after the police get off of him they just leave him there in distress, doing nothing to render aid. To me the choke hold doesn’t actually concern me as much in terms of negligent homicide as leaving him in distress. Even if a choke hold had not been used, I feel it was negligent to leave an obese, very out of shape, and subdued suspect lying like they did. I also suspect if they had propped Garner up so he could sit on a curb, he’d still be alive today. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-the-police-officer-who-killed-eric-garner-indicted/706271/203 "2014-12-05T03:45:37Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > In this case, there is no indication on the tape that the suspect had ever been informed of any such thing. Furthermore, there is no indication that informing the suspect of the reason for the arrest was “impractical”. This hugely overweight man was not a ‘flight risk’ and he was not physically resisting the cops (that is, before _they_ attacked _him_). There was no obvious reason they could not have said “you are under arrest for … X”. It is less than clear what reasons they could have given. > > Therefore, there had been no “arrest” under New York law, so the man was not “resisting arrest”. In the original tape the narrator actually says they are trying to arrest Garner, it seems quite plausible to me they had told him they were arresting him before the guy started rolling. He even says “they’re trying to lock this man up for breaking up a fight.” Which is odd because none of that has really been expounded on much that I’ve seen (we just hear about illegal cigarette sales), but the video starts after Garner and the cops are already arguing. There is no unbiased source of information about what happened up to that point. Without access to the evidence here I don’t think it’s a crazy possibility that they told him they were placing him under arrest and that’s why he was so agitated, and why the guy filming started filming, and why the guy filming said “they’re trying to lock this guy up” when Garner was still verbally arguing with the police (prior to the physical confrontation.) ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-the-police-officer-who-killed-eric-garner-indicted/706271/204 "2014-12-05T03:47:24Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > With Trayvon and Ferguson, I think the courts made the right call, but with this one, I find it highly questionable that it didn’t go to indictment. I’m not sure it’s accurate to refer to a grand jury as “the court.” Don’t we usually use that term to refer to judicial rulings? Grand jurors are people off the streets. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-the-police-officer-who-killed-eric-garner-indicted/706271/205 "2014-12-05T03:51:36Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I probably shouldn’t admit this 😉 but I have a sneaking suspicion this is happening because they don’t want to look like complete assholes after Mike Brown. Or maybe because in one case you had a kid who 1. committed an obvious crime and then 2. punched a cop 3. before a series of disputed events took place with conflicting evidence. In the other you have a guy who 1. was only ever guilty of violating bullshit nanny-state rules 2. plainly, obviously was just trying to mind his own business 3. was attacked by overzealous cops on video. The authoritarian conservatives are gonna be on the side of the cops, and the authoritarian liberals will be too, at the end of the day. For [libertarian types](http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/04/eric-garners-final-words), this is exhibit 1a of everything we hate. If you’ll indulge me: [ > [@](#): > > You want a society taxed and regulated toward your vision of perfection? It’s going to need enforcers. Those enforcers are going to interact on a daily basis wth people who don’t share that vision of perfection, and who resent the constant enforcement attempts. They’ll push back to greater or lesser extents. And the enforcers will twist arms in return to frighten people into obedience. People will be abused and some will die. > … > Those enforcers aren’t an equal problem for everybody. They spare the people who pay them to look the other way. They give a pass to friends and relations. But they often take a dislike to individuals or whole groups that rub them the wrong way or cause them extra grief. Poor minorities, in particular, are aways on the short end of the stick when it comes to dealing with cops. When they break petty laws, they don’t often turn enough profit to grease police palms enough to be left alone, they don’t have the political power to push back, and at least some of the enforcers have a hard-on for them anyway. > Government, at its core, is force. The more it does to shape the world around it, the more it needs enforcers to make sure officials’ wills are done. “The law is the law,” says New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, but it’s creatures like him who make so much damned law. And then they send the likes of Officer Daniel Pantaleo to make sure we comply. ]([Eric Garner's Murder Reveals the Ugly Core of Government and Law Enforcement](http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/04/eric-garners-murder-reveals-the-ugly-cor)) When you hear people say “everything government does comes at the barrel of gun,” cases like this are exactly what we mean. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-the-police-officer-who-killed-eric-garner-indicted/706271/206 "2014-12-05T03:51:50Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Clearly you do not understand the facts. > > Forget Ferguson or this case, and if you want, even more outrageous cases like Levar Jones or Oscar Grant. Black people are harassed for no reason on an astonishingly regular basis. My brother in law, who is among the kindest, least threatening, calmest people I’ve ever known, is harassed regularly; he has no record of any kind, but he’s black. He once had a cop order him out of his car, hand on gun, for the alleged offense of running a stop sign, which was a curious accusation given that he had not yet started his car. Fortunately, he had white friends in the car with him who made a scene, so they let him go. > > I know law-abiding black people who average a “routine check” stop six, seven times a year. Often they’re ordered out of their cars. Sometimes they’re walking down the street and are accosted by police who demand to know where they’re going and what they’re doing. Sure hasn’t happened to me - not once, ever - because I’m white. You think it SHOULD happen to everyone? I think where you lose people is “because blacks get harassed” for some people has translated to “we want to see someone arrested and sent to prison, even if the law says that cannot be done.” The first is a valid beef, the second is an assault against the very democratic and legal foundation of our entire society. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-the-police-officer-who-killed-eric-garner-indicted/706271/207 "2014-12-05T04:46:19Z")
> [@furt](#): > > Or maybe because in one case you had a kid who > > 1. committed an obvious crime and then > 2. punched a cop > 3. before a series of disputed events took place with conflicting evidence. > > In the other you have a guy who > > 1. was only ever guilty of violating bullshit nanny-state rules > 2. plainly, obviously was just trying to mind his own business > 3. was attacked by overzealous cops on video. > > The authoritarian conservatives are gonna be on the side of the cops, and the authoritarian liberals will be too, at the end of the day. For [libertarian types](http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/04/eric-garners-final-words), this is exhibit 1a of everything we hate. If you’ll indulge me: > > [URL=“[Eric Garner's Murder Reveals the Ugly Core of Government and Law Enforcement](http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/04/eric-garners-murder-reveals-the-ugly-cor)”] > > When you hear people say “everything government does comes at the barrel of gun,” cases like this are exactly what we mean. which explains the blood baths in the rest of the civilized world how exactly? ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-the-police-officer-who-killed-eric-garner-indicted/706271/208 "2014-12-05T05:38:55Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I think where you lose people is “because blacks get harassed” for some people has translated to “we want to see someone arrested and sent to prison, even if the law says that cannot be done.” The first is a valid beef, the second is an assault against the very democratic and legal foundation of our entire society. And those people who feel that they have been ill served by that society at best, and are currently being outright murdered on an ongoing basis in defiance of those laws you go on about at worst? ---
**Author:** ![Rucksinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/898d66/32.png) [@Rucksinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rucksinator)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-the-police-officer-who-killed-eric-garner-indicted/706271/209 "2014-12-05T05:44:39Z")
I’m curious as to what the coroner’s report actually said. I’m currently engaged in a FaceBook debate because I dispute the phrase “Choked to death”. After watching the video it seems clear to me that the “chokehold” (using quotes because it’s impossible to see from the video whether or not either his windpipe or carotid artery are ever blocked) was released as soon as he was on the ground, before he claimed that he couldn’t breathe. My opponents question my medical background (I have none) by claiming that the coroner’s report says that he was choked to death. Is there a link to the coroner’s report? Or are people just going by news reports? ETA this quote: …its nice to know that your “medical expertise” in the cause of death overrules the professional medical examiner examination that officially states that he died from being choked to death. Therefore, ruled as a homicide… ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-the-police-officer-who-killed-eric-garner-indicted/706271/210 "2014-12-05T06:34:12Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Yes, people who do not commit crimes are immune from prosecution. They do have a lot in common with many of the police cases though, in that liberals definitely **want** non-criminal actions to be crime. In their furor of wanting, they fail to realize that wanting something doesn’t make it so, and refer to the crimes as though they are already on the books. What pompous malarkey. Why don’t you [fight your ignorance](http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-9-billion-witness-20141106). True, the criminal frauds that article refers to were settled for a mere $9 billion – peanuts perhaps, compared with a pocketful of loosies which can get up to the low two-digits in total street value, but this was just one bank settling one fraud. And yes, the criminals at JPMorgan Chase were not convicted in a court of law. But neither was Eric Garner. > [@orcenio](#): > > Am I in a George Orwell novel? Joseph Heller? Franz Kafka? You guys would tell me if I was, no? I find this the most appropriate comment in the entire thread. Here we are at The World’s Most Intelligent Liberal Board™ (:eek:) but Dopers are falling over themselves to gloat that a petty criminal, who didn’t really even resist arrest, suffers capital consequence for “resisting arrest”, while America’s big-time criminals go scot-free. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-the-police-officer-who-killed-eric-garner-indicted/706271/211 "2014-12-05T06:34:15Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > which explains the blood baths in the rest of the civilized world how exactly? [Quite](http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/police-abuse-goes-unchecked-france-20090402) [well,](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/27/sweden-punishes-rioters-police-stockholm-riots) [actually.](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/world/asia/07iht-japan.1.5596308.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0) We’re the worst, but we ain’t the only. Ya gotta have laws, and cops gotta enforce them. But enforcement inevitably runs the risk of [abuse](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-30015465) or [accident,](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2810977/French-eco-protester-killed-police-GRENADE-protest-against-dam-government-accused-having-blood-hands.html) and the system will almost always [defend its enforcers.](http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2011/01/26/rare_guilty_verdict_for_cops_in_police_brutality_case.html) Sometimes [things can work out](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-20/how-swiss-deal-police-brutality), but sometimes not. So, yeah, think carefully about what laws you want to pass. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-the-police-officer-who-killed-eric-garner-indicted/706271/212 "2014-12-05T07:15:39Z")
> [@Cubsfan](#): > > Who gives a shit? That’s how it should be! > > Be sympathetic to Garner and any of the other clear cases of police overstepping on other African Americans but Brown was NOT one of them. He’s dead because he was a thug who tried to “keep it real” but it went bad. Racist bullshit. BTW, young black teenagers haven’t been saying “keep it real” for over a decade so please stop using that phrase unless you want to look and sound even whiter than your post suggests. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-the-police-officer-who-killed-eric-garner-indicted/706271/213 "2014-12-05T11:44:44Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Like when the police tries to use non-lethal force (like a tazer) and the subject dies anyway, correct? There is one law (the eggshell skull doctrine) for the common herd, and quite another for their “betters”… ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-the-police-officer-who-killed-eric-garner-indicted/706271/214 "2014-12-05T11:48:23Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Yes, that’s right. Mr. Garner was arrested (and in the process killed) for selling tiny amounts of tobacco to poor people. In a city where billion-dollar _fraudsters_ drive their Maseratis, immune from prosecution. (emphasis added) > [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Yes, people who do not commit crimes are immune from prosecution. They do have a lot in common with many of the police cases though, in that liberals definitely **want** non-criminal actions to be crime. In their furor of wanting, they fail to realize that wanting something doesn’t make it so, and refer to the crimes as though they are already on the books. Fraud is not a crime on your planet? Hokay… ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-the-police-officer-who-killed-eric-garner-indicted/706271/215 "2014-12-05T13:26:50Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > And those people who feel that they have been ill served by that society at best, and are currently being outright murdered on an ongoing basis in defiance of those laws you go on about at worst? They should be upset when those instances happen. Unfortunately it’s starting to look now like those instances are going to be “anytime an unarmed black man is killed by a police officer.” I’d like an admission from at least some of those prone to protest that killing an “unarmed” person can often be appropriate self defense. They are already up in arms about the Arizona case, in which the suspect appears to have actually been a violent drug dealer (he stashed his gun in his car before fleeing), and in which the initial narrative we are being fed with gives no one any valid reason to protest. FWIW I think the Ferguson case deserved scrutiny, when more information came out people should have accepted that the murky evidence made it a poor rallying cry. The Eric Garner case (which I knew about before I’d ever heard of Ferguson, MO) I think is a better one to focus on since even if Garner was not killed by the choke hold he was left to die on the street and IMO the simple act of sitting him up on the curb would have saved his life. He was clearly in medical distress, and the police negligently allowed him to die. The Tamir Rice case is also a better one to focus on, particular as it relates to what police officers do _prior to_ a use of force incident. The actual discharge of the firearm was probably legally appropriate in Rice’s case, but it was caused by poor decision making that lead up to it. In the Garner case I’d posit if all they wanted to arrest him for was a cigarette tax violation that it seems like that should be a ticket and release crime instead of a detention/booking crime. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-the-police-officer-who-killed-eric-garner-indicted/706271/216 "2014-12-05T13:31:45Z")
> [@Rucksinator](#): > > I’m curious as to what the coroner’s report actually said. > > I’m currently engaged in a FaceBook debate because I dispute the phrase “Choked to death”. After watching the video it seems clear to me that the “chokehold” (using quotes because it’s impossible to see from the video whether or not either his windpipe or carotid artery are ever blocked) was released as soon as he was on the ground, before he claimed that he couldn’t breathe. My opponents question my medical background (I have none) by claiming that the coroner’s report says that he was choked to death. > > Is there a link to the coroner’s report? Or are people just going by news reports? > ETA this quote: …its nice to know that your “medical expertise” in the cause of death overrules the professional medical examiner examination that officially states that he died from being choked to death. Therefore, ruled as a homicide… > [@](#): > > ``` > Eric Garner, the Staten Island dad who complained that he couldn’t breathe as he was subdued by cops, died from compression of the neck, the medical examiner said Friday. > The autopsy also found that compressions to the chest and “prone positioning during physical restraint by police” killed Garner. The manner of death, according to the medical examiner, was homicide. > > ``` I don’t think the report has been released in full publicly, the Eric Garner case in fact there is very little information on that has been released publicly. While we have a video, which we didn’t have in Ferguson, every other aspect of the Garner case is not fleshed out. We don’t have any account that I’m aware of as to what happened before the camera started rolling. What I read the coroner’s report as saying is that Garner was killed by being choked, and by being positionally asphyxiated with obesity, heart disease and asthma being contributing factors. It’s also come out that the bones of the neck and windpipe were not damaged at the time of the autopsy. That is why my conclusion is that while the choke may have put Garner into distress, it’s being pinned to the ground on his stomach, and then left there after the cops get up, that actually killed him. Likely his life could have been saved if they had simply sat him up. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-the-police-officer-who-killed-eric-garner-indicted/706271/217 "2014-12-05T13:36:39Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > (emphasis added) > Fraud is not a crime on your planet? Hokay… I’ve said before on these cases, show me an individual that you believe there is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that individual committed fraud, and show me where they have not been prosecuted. The argument on this issue has always been akin to “the bank vault was empty when bank employees arrived on Monday, so the bank must have been robbed. A crime has been committed, so that means the bank manager must be the criminal.” There was certainly some level of fraud (though exaggerated in scale due to ignorance about how the mortgage securtization process works), and certainly some instances of corporations as a whole acting fraudulently. I’m not aware of lots of cases of _individual fraud_ committed by persons at the bank where we have actual evidence showing someone committed a crime and the government has not acted. To its credit I believe the Obama Justice Department has acted as aggressively as possible within the bounds of our constitution against any frauds it could _prove_, you guys are mad because it hasn’t somehow magically convicted people on whom it has no incriminating evidence simply because you believe they must be guilty. That’s not how our justice system works. The idea that the major reason for all the billions of dollars lost in the financial crisis being due to fraud is incorrect anyway. Most of it was due to simple bad investing and stupid speculation, combined with stupidly designed insurance contracts that guaranteed a decline in the price of mortgage backed securities would wipe out a huge segment of the financial insurance industry. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-the-police-officer-who-killed-eric-garner-indicted/706271/218 "2014-12-05T13:38:37Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > There is one law (the eggshell skull doctrine) for the common herd, and quite another for their “betters”… The eggshell skull doctrine is irrelevant if it’s a legal use of force, which varies depending on who you are and where you are, and the situation. Police are allowed to exercise governmental force on persons in cases where private citizens doing so would be assault, because the government has a “monopoly on the legitimate use of force” in our society, and they have to have, or we would have no laws or police forces to enforce them. But if I wake up and someone has broken into my house here in a castle doctrine State, and I hurl them out the front door and they land on their neck, break it, and die, I’m not getting sent to prison for murder. In many castle doctrine cases the homeowner is not even charged with a crime. ---
**Author:** ![BOOM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c4cdca/32.png) [@BOOM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BOOM)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-the-police-officer-who-killed-eric-garner-indicted/706271/219 "2014-12-05T13:41:28Z")
You have this back to front. The reason there are not laws addressing bank fraud is because the people who fund the legislature do not want laws on banking fraud. It was fraud - everyone knows what the banks did was fraudulent, it just doesn’t fall within the framework. Intentionally so. You don’t pay pay good money to end up going to jail. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2014, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-the-police-officer-who-killed-eric-garner-indicted/706271/220 "2014-12-05T13:53:02Z")
> [@furt](#): > > [Quite](http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/police-abuse-goes-unchecked-france-20090402) [well,](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/27/sweden-punishes-rioters-police-stockholm-riots) [actually.](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/world/asia/07iht-japan.1.5596308.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0) We’re the worst, but we ain’t the only. > > Ya gotta have laws, and cops gotta enforce them. But enforcement inevitably runs the risk of [abuse](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-30015465) or [accident,](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2810977/French-eco-protester-killed-police-GRENADE-protest-against-dam-government-accused-having-blood-hands.html) and the system will almost always [defend its enforcers.](http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2011/01/26/rare_guilty_verdict_for_cops_in_police_brutality_case.html) Sometimes [things can work out](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-20/how-swiss-deal-police-brutality), but sometimes not. So, yeah, think carefully about what laws you want to pass. I don’t think anyone would dispute that sentiment but it’s odd that the supposedly less socially engineered US experiences cop killings far in excess of other western countries. Given your premise - more laws, more interactions, more misunderstandings, more deaths - you would think it would be the reverse. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-the-police-officer-who-killed-eric-garner-indicted/706271.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-wasnt-the-police-officer-who-killed-eric-garner-indicted/706271.md?page=12)