‘Chokehold’ on relations
NEW YORK, July 23, (RTRS): When Bill Bratton returned in January for a second stint as New York City’s police commissioner, he often invoked two priorities — to mend relations with black and Latino citizens and to keep serious crime down with the same methods he used in the 1990s.
Just months into the job, those two missions appear to have clashed violently in the death of
outside a Staten Island beauty parlor last Thursday after police placed him in a chokehold. The events have been watched by thousands on two videos taken at the scene and circulated widely online.
Bratton promised to reform relations between police and citizens, particularly the black and Hispanic young men who were stopped and frisked in the street in disproportionately large numbers, a practice that a federal judge ruled was unconstitutional last August.
And, in a reprise of a tactic he believes served the city well in the 1990s, he wanted his officers to not overlook low-level offenses and “quality of life” crimes, believing that what is often referred to as “broken windows” policing in turn kept more serious crimes in check.
But critics of New York police tactics say that the arrest and death of Garner, 43, have exposed a tension between those two missions that needs to be resolved.
Garner, who was black and previously worked in gardening and maintenance for the city’s parks department, was suspected of selling untaxed cigarettes, a relatively minor misdemeanor.
“The concern we have is that Eric Garner is a casualty of the ‘broken windows’ policing practices that are repeatedly reaffirmed as a cornerstone of policing policy in this administration,” Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said. “That’s troubling.”
Although the city posts weekly summaries of arrests for murders and other serious felonies, data for minor misdemeanors was not immediately available.
Weighed
In the videos recorded by bystanders, Garner — who weighed 350 lbs and suffered from asthma and sleep apnea — can be seen arguing with a small group of police officers trying to arrest him. Then comes the chokehold, a forbidden maneuver in the city’s police department since 1993. Garner ends up on the ground, struggling against the officer’s grip. He repeatedly says he cannot breathe, his voice sounding panicked. He goes limp.
There is no evidence he received any medical intervention beyond a check of his pulse before he is hefted onto a stretcher at least seven minutes after he lost consciousness. He is soon declared dead. Police say his heart stopped beating in the ambulance. The city’s medical examiner has not yet ruled on the cause of his death.
New York’s Mayor Bill de Blasio, a liberal Democrat, was elected last November in part because voters liked his staunch criticism of stop-and-frisk policing. The tactic had been used widely by the police when Ray Kelly ran the force during the administration of Michael Bloomberg, the previous mayor.
De Blasio said the tactic had divided the city. His administration would drop Bloomberg’s appeal of the federal ruling that the police department’s practices had been in breach of the U.S. Constitution and accept a federal monitor’s oversight.
He also hired Bratton, who has also done stints leading the police departments in Los Angeles and Boston, to help mend the breach.
Bratton, a media-friendly 66year-old who still speaks with a Boston accent, received acclaim for some of the innovations he introduced in New York when he was police chief from 1994 to 1996 at a time when the crime rate was dramatically higher. They included the CompStat computerized crimetracking system that allowed officers to anticipate hot spots.
Civil rights groups and local leaders, among others, say they will be watching the city’s response to see whether the mayor and police commissioner really mean what they promised, and whether Bratton’s two priorities are compatible.