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Boston.com: After yesterday’s announcement that a New York grand jury decided not to indict NYPD officer David Pantaleo — whose videotaped chokehold on New York resident Eric Garner caused his death — outraged citizens in the Boston area have planned a rally in solidarity that will coincide with the tree-lighting on the Boston Common tonight.
Nearly 5,000 people have RSVP’d on the Facebook event for#EnoughisEnough: We Are the Ones, Justice for Eric Garner, which is scheduled to be held from 7-11 PM. That means at least an hour of the 73rd annual Boston tree lighting ceremony, scheduled from 6-8 PM on the Boston Common, could be interrupted by a somewhat less festive crowd.
If you haven’t seen the Eric Garner video then I suggest you watch it. Here it is:
We’re 100% pro-police at Turtleboy Sports. We thought the Ferguson protests were bullshit and we especially can’t stand idiot Clark students and college professors who call Worcester Police racist because it’s the cool thing to do for a day or two. Could the grand jury possibly have picked a worse time to not pursue this case? Like, did they intentionally wait for everyone to get all fired up about Ferguson before they dropped this bombshell? Because let’s be honest – this just is not a good look for anyone.
But this isn’t defensible, and it only legitimizes people who wanna protest a Christmas tree lighting in Boston. I’m not a cop and I’m not familiar with the rules and training required in a situation like this. But I do know that the guy clearly could not breathe but the meathead cop continued to choke him anyway. Case closed.
I don’t necessarily believe the cop should stand trial for murder, because this was in the line of duty and he didn’t intend to kill the man, especially since he knew he was being taped. But the bottom line is that he fucked up. And when you fuck up this badly at work, you lose your job. It’s how the world works.
Eric Garner was selling loose cigarettes in Staten Island. Big fucking deal. You’re telling me that this is all the police in Staten Island had to worry about? Obviously this wouldn’t be the first guy NYPD would wanna go after. Seems pretty low priority. So why bother? Oh yea, that’s right – because the government’s not getting their cut. Cigarette taxes are INSANE. That’s a shitload of revenue the government misses out on every time this guy sells a cigarette. Eric Garner didn’t die because of racism. He died because of a greedy city government and cops who who didn’t use common sense.
As for the protest, give me a break. Once again these idiots are taking something that they’re passionate about and forcing everyone else to stop what they’re doing and look at them. That’s all this is about. “Look at me – I’m a protester now!!.” This “protest” isn’t gonna change shit. Eric Garner’s not coming back from the dead. The grand jury isn’t gonna all of a sudden indict the cop responsible. And all that’s gonna happen is a bunch of kids are gonna have their night ruined. Way to go protesters!!
Feel free to share your thoughts to keep the conversation going.
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3 Comment(s)
Hey,
Gotta disagree with you on the protest part. It’s going to bring attention to the issue of injustice and show that a mass populace can take community action to demonstrate dissent. Sure, it’s not going to bring Garner back .. duh but at least his death, caught on video, by illegal police tactics won’t be in vain. It’s a citizens duty to protest the state when they fuck up, and this time, they fucked up. Bet we see some legislation to prevent future cases and additional pressure to the Federal Government to indict for this particular incident.
Tony
it’s a shame the guy died, just proves that the truth can be very black and white, no pun intended, and in this case, it was clear that Eric Garner was truly mishandled by the police- lack of common sense and judgement skills on the cops part- all of them for that matter, someone could have said, hey it’s enough the guy is not fighting back, stop choking him. Makes me think these cops were purely operating from the part of the brain that says ‘ he bigger than me, so we must attack, he a threat, kill threat’ with a few primitive grunts in between.
What a lot of these “anti-cop” meatheads won’t understand is that being pro-police also means holding cops like this accountable so that we don’t sacrifice more Darren Wilsons to a bunch of politically motivated bullshit.