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cb1000rider wrote: I'd be more understanding if he was smuggling cigarettes in from Indian reservations (or neighboring states) and selling bulk - but we've got legislation that prevents the sale of single cigarettes? And we enforce it? Seriously?

This is what we pay our government officials to spend their time doing... And create a situation where our PDs are looking at this level of stuff in a city as large as this one?

While he was not selling bulk, he gets a better profit margin by selling single cigarettes that have been smuggled.

A very long time ago my friend's father would drive to Canada on a regular basis. He was a supervisor for a trucking company that had a terminal near Montreal and his trips were regular and with reason, so he got very little hassle from the border people. The company's trucks coming out of Montreal south were always checked for contraband cigarettes and fireworks, but my friend's father, in his little sedan, was only asked the perfunctory questions about anything to declare.

One trip he took my friend along for the ride, and as they crossed back into the US the customs guy asked him if he had anything to declare, if he had bought cigarettes or fireworks and so on, and when Paul's father said no, Paul, being ever the helpful child, said: "But Daddy, what about the ones in the trunk?"

He got in a little trouble and paid a fine, as I remember, but never smuggled cigarettes again. All the kids in the neighborhood mourned the loss of our fireworks.

sjfcontrol wrote:

anygunanywhere wrote:

sjfcontrol wrote:There are some questions about the "choke hold". Seems NYC doesn't allow officers to use "choke holds", but the questions involve the definition on of "choke hold". I've heard that they have a specific definition, and that the hold the officer used did not meet that definition. If that is true, then the hold the officer used was not forbidden.

Also, he may have been in distress, but if he's saying "I can't breathe" over and over, he IS breathing. You can't talk unless you can inhale and exhale air. For what it's worth, I also heard a (claimed) cop explain that the first thing an arrestee says when cuffed is "I can't breathe".

I am NOT trying to defend what the officers did, but wanted to express some or the "exculpatory" explanations I heard today.

Even if the hold the LEO was using was not forbidden it still resulted in the death of a human being being arrested for a misdemeanor.

Justice has been ignored.

The incestuous relationship between law enforcement and the DA has been validated once again.

And yet in the meme of "hands up, don't shoot", the outcry is about the use of an "illegal" choke hold. (I've heard both that it was illegal, and that it was only not allowed by the department.). But it is NYC, so I can't refute your claims.

I tend to lean toward the side of: If he said "I can't breathe" once and then ceased, it's different from saying it over and over, while obviously breathing. I have participated in the arrest of someone who did the "I can't breathe" thing while a huge shore patrol member sat in his chest, and as soon as Tiny got off him, he got up and started to run again. I have seen numerous cases, and participated in a couple, where the guy being subdued was moaning and screaming about his arm was being broken, etc, and it turned out not to be so. In the excitement of the moment, judging whether that BG you are wrestling with is really in distress or just trying to put one over on you is hard to do, so most just default to the BG is just trying to put one over.

Having said that, I would like to know more. Were they really doing that subdue due to his selling cigarettes, or were they taking him down because he resisted the original arrest and things escalated. Sure looked to me as if he was doing a creditable job of standing off three or four officers when the choke hold got applied, and that would mean, to me, that it was not due to the cigarettes, but to the resistance.