Cop in Eric Garner's death not indicted

[Torie]

I don't claim to know all the facts (and won't be able to know anything more than was on the video until the grand jury transcript is released), but inasmuch as 1) Garner was committing a petty crime (selling cigarettes illegally), and the cops felt the need to handcuff him nevertheless, and when he resisted, shoved him to the ground, and then the cop uses a choke hold that is against police policy and unnecessary to boot, and then Garner says he can't breathe, and the choke hold continues even though there was no life threatening situation here to the cops, then 2) assuming the choke hold was the cause of death, my tentative view is that we have a case of criminal manslaughter here, to wit, gross negligence that showed a reckless disregard for human life that shocks the conscience, and thus rises from a civil tort to the level of a criminal act. So if causation can be shown, it seems to me that we do indeed have a miscarriage of justice here, in a way that is far clearer than the Brian Wilson episode in Ferguson. JMO.