Protests and Reform in the Wake of Pantaleo Decision

As racial tension between police and citizens rises with several
big cases, including the death of Eric Garner, police forces, including
the recently-investigated Cleveland Police, are looking for ways to
reform and repair relationships.
Image:  Denise Kappa / Shutterstock.com
A grand jury cleared New York police officer Daniel Pantaleo on Wednesday, leading to a series of protests across the country regarding yet another death of a black man at the hands of a white police officer.

Pantaleo was charged with choking a black man to death during an arrest attempt.  A city medical examiner ruled the death of 43-year-old Eric Garner a homicide, stating that Pantaleo had compressed Garner’s neck and chest with enough force to choke him to death.

Legally, the question became whether or not the amount of force was necessary.  New York City Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch told reporters that Pantaleo had acted properly in restraining Garner, saying, “He’s a model of what we want a police officer to be.” 
Pantaleo’s lawyer, Stuart London, told Reuters on Thursday that Pantaleo had properly applied an approved takedown technique.  However, chokeholds are technically banned in most situations by the police procedure manual.
Reverend Al Sharpton and other civil rights leaders determined the incident to be police abuse, calling for a special federal prosecutor to investigate the Garner case as well as similar recent cases, including the shooting death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson and the death of a 12-year-old boy who was carrying a toy gun on a playground.  In both instances, the victim was black and the shooter was a white police officer.  "We want the justice department to address the fact that the system is broken when you are dealing with the police and people of color," Sharpton said in a news conference.
Protests began as early as Wednesday night in Manhattan, where hundreds swarmed the streets, chanting, “I can’t breathe,” the phrase Garner repeatedly gasped in a video of the incident leading to his death.  Protests also occurred in Oakland, Washington, D.C., and Denver.
In a separate announcement on Thursday, US Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Justice Department’s investigation of the Cleveland Police Department had found that they systematically engage in excessive use of force against civilians.  According to the report, they use guns, tasers, pepper spray, and even fists either unnecessarily or in retaliation, often against the mentally ill.  Because of this pattern of what the report calls “unreasonable and unnecessary use of force,” the city of Cleveland and the Justice Department have signed an agreement to develop a reform procedure.  No criminal charges will be filed.

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