Who wrote the script for this:
Fearing for his life
Ramsey Orta filmed the killing of Eric Garner. The video traveled far, but it wouldn't get justice for his dead friend. Instead, the NYPD would exact their revenge through targeted harassment and eventually imprisonment — Orta's punishment for daring to show the world police brutality.
By Chloé Cooper Jones | March 13, 10:00am ESTPhotography by Amelia Holowaty Krales
https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/13/18253848/eric-garner-footage-ramsey-orta-police-brutality-killing-safety
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In New York state, a grand jury returns a true bill of indictment if a bare majority — 12 of the 23 sitting jurors — believes there’s enough evidence to proceed to a criminal trial. Daniel Pantaleo’s grand jury sat for nine weeks. Ramsey Orta was the first of 50 witnesses to testify. His video, along with the medical examiner’s report, provided clear evidence that Pantaleo had used an illegal chokehold on Garner. A “chokehold” is defined in the NYPD patrol guide as “any pressure to the throat or windpipe,” which hinders breathing. Orta’s video showed that Pantaleo had continued to apply pressure to Garner’s windpipe after Garner was on the ground, subdued, and had repeatedly said that he couldn’t breathe. Still, the Staten Island grand jury declined to indict Pantaleo.
The ruling further reinforced the reality of the tremendous authority police officers have to determine a necessary use of force. Barely a week prior, a St. Louis County grand jury declined to indict Darren Wilson, the officer who shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black man, in Ferguson, Missouri. A year later, a grand jury would come to the same decision in regard to Timothy Loehmann, the officer who — after only two seconds on the scene — shot and killed an unarmed black child, Tamir Rice. No charges were brought against the officers involved in Alton Sterling’s death in Baton Rouge. Officer Jeronimo Yanez was charged with second-degree manslaughter for the death of Philando Castile, only to be acquitted. The trials for the Baltimore police officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray ended in a mistrial and more acquittals.
In 2014, President Obama requested millions in federal grants to fund the expansion of body-worn cameras for on-duty police officers. The move was supported by many across the political spectrum as a chance to improve transparency and accountability in law enforcement and to ease tensions between police and the communities they’re tasked to protect. But President Obama was smart enough to know that more video — more proof — wasn’t going to fix anything. “There is a role for technology to play in building additional trust and accountability, but it’s not a panacea,” he warned.
In 2015, Officer Ray Tensing shot and killed Samuel DuBose, an unarmed black man, during a traffic stop. Tensing claimed that he “feared for his life” after DuBose started his car and began to drive away with Tensing’s arm caught through the driver’s window. His bodycam footage directly contradicted this account. He was indicted, but the charges were dismissed. In 2017, Betty Jo Shelby was acquitted in the shooting death of an unarmed black man, Terence Crutcher, despite police video showing Crutcher with his hands up in compliance. When asked why she fired her weapon, Shelby said, “I feared for my life.”
"For police, this near-total authority is protected by our judicial system"
In 2016, jurors were shown bodycam footage that clearly depicted Milwaukee resident Sylville K. Smith running from police. Cornered, Smith gave up the chase, threw his gun over a fence, and put his hands up in surrender. Then police officer Dominique Heaggan-Brown shot Smith, killing him. The defense attorney told the jury Heaggan-Brown acted out of fear for his life. The jury found the officer not guilty.
After Pantaleo’s trial concluded, Esaw Snipes, Eric’s widow, said, “There’s no doubt in my mind or the mind of all the people out there in the world. What we saw in that video cannot be disputed. How they disputed it, I don’t know.”
Why is video evidence not enough in any of these cases? How is it that we can argue and erase what can be plainly seen with our own eyes? History has repeatedly given us the answer: America’s protected ideal is power, not justice. State power is consolidated by maintaining the authority to determine what counts as an appropriate use of force. For police, this near-total authority is protected by our judicial system.
In 1989, the Supreme Court case Graham v. Connor established a “reasonableness standard,” which is a powerful weapon of defense for police in excessive-force cases. The case involved Dethorne Graham, a black man from North Carolina, who had suffered a broken foot and other injuries after police officers mistook his diabetic shock for drunken belligerence. Conservative Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s delivered opinion put forth the precedent that the Fourth Amendment be used to determine whether “officers’ actions are ‘objectively reasonable’ in light of the facts and circumstances confronting them.” When evaluating the reasonableness of the action taken, one must take into consideration that police officers are “often forced to make split-second decisions about the amount of force necessary in a particular situation.”
Jurors in excessive-force cases now are given explicit instructions to think from “the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene,” keeping in mind that the nature of police work requires these “split-second decisions.” When the officer testifies that they acted out of fear for their lives, the Graham v. Connor decision requires jurors to try on that alleged fear and to view the incident through the eyes of the officer, not the victim. This is a powerfully empathetic, imaginative act.
Humans are inherently, psychologically motivated to reduce the discomfort of cognitive dissonance, and fewer things will create more painful cognitive dissonance than watching those sworn to protect shoot and kill a civilian who posed no threat to them. Our minds protect us, often without our realizing it, by latching on to narratives that can reconcile such tragic opposing facts. It is easier to see the victims as one-dimensional criminals, threatening the fearful police, and therefore deserving of whatever comes their way.
And so it becomes easy — for jurors and the public alike — to trust authority and leave the dead confined to the margins of our imagination.
The victims are gone. They can’t testify. They can’t tell us of their fear for their lives.
