“This doesn’t happen in the other side of the city.” Naomi Fierro grew up on Mission and Geneva Street in San Francisco. Everyday at a smoke shop next to her house, around 4:00pm, three cop cars would show up, and every single day she saw them take a different person of color for no reason. Police brutality is an ongoing problem and existent concern in the United states and should be resolved immediately. But the thing is, they only do this to innocent people of color! An example of police brutality is Eric Garner’s case. The police officer who killed Eric Garner should be hold responsible for his death because he was not doing anything bad, the officer used a chokehold technique which is already banned, and this has not been the only case where they have killed someone innocent and of color (Latino & African American). We need to make a change and make the police officer who killed Eric Garner responsible for his death.
The first reason of why the police officer who killed Eric garner should be held responsible for his death is because Garner was not doing anything bad. He was clear of arms and was just selling untaxed cigarettes. For example, in the text it says,“And what was his crime? As the video shows (note: it is incredibly disturbing, so watch at your own risk), he wasn’t a serious threat to anyone. He carried no weapons. He did not shove or attack any police officers in such a way to be considered an immediate threat to their health and safety”(Davis 1). This shows that Eric Garner was doing absolutely nothing to be deserved to be killed and be treated that way. This supports that the police officer for doing this should be responsible for his death because it is totally unfair that Eric garner got killed for doing nothing else but selling cigarettes which is not the biggest crime. Also they have been bigger crimes with white people and what do the police officers do about that, NOTHING absolutely nothing. But if a person a color does nothing bad, the first thing the police officers do is kill them.
Even though it is clear that the police officer that killed Eric Garner should be hold responsible, some people might think that the police officer should not be held responsible since Eric Garner did not follow simple instructions from the officers which lead to the choke hold incident and later on to Eric Garner’s death. For example, in the text it says, “There is no doubt that Garner was resisting an arrest for illegally selling untaxed cigarettes. Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik put it this way: ‘You cannot resist arrest. If Eric Garner did not resist arrest, the outcome of this case would have been very different,’he told Newsmax. "He wouldn't be dead today” (Meyers 1). However this is wrong because what else was he supposed to do? Let them kill him? No! What he was trying to do was to protect himself as much as he could so he did not get killed because who would not defend themselves when they now they are trying to not arrest them but kill them!
The second reason of why the police officer who killed Eric Garner should be held responsible for his death is because the officer who killed Eric Garner used a chokehold technique which is already banned. I know this because in the article it says, “As the video shows, the officer clearly caused the death of Eric Garner, who was alive until the officer put him in a chokehold, a move which is banned by the NYPD for good reason. And why did the police department ban chokeholds? Here’s an article on the subject from 1993, when a previous police chief banned the practice: The New York City Police Department has issued an order banning the use of chokeholds, the restraining maneuvers that cut off the flow of blood and oxygen to the brain and have been blamed in the deaths of suspects here and around the nation” (Davis 2).This piece of evidence shows how the choke hold that the police officer used was already banned so he should not have used it. This supports my claim because using a chokehold on Eric Garner for selling untaxed cigarettes is too extreme and also the chokehold is banned. Instead of the police officer using a chokehold on Eric Garner he could of talked to Garner and told him to give him the cigarettes in a nice way.
Some people might say that the police should not be held responsible since Eric Garner had many other medical conditions that caused his death. For example, in the article it says, “The chokehold that Patrolman Daniel Pantaleo put on Garner was reported to have contributed to his death. But Garner, who was 6-foot-3 and weighed 350 pounds, suffered from a number of health problems, including heart disease, severe asthma, diabetes, obesity, and sleep apnea. Pantaleo's attorney and police union officials argued that Garner's poor health was the main cause of his death” (Meyers 1). This might be a good point but it is not the same as showing a video which is in my second body paragraph, where you can see that the police officer is using a banned chokehold technique that agitated his other medical conditions. If the police officer would of payed attention and heard what Eric Garner was saying while he was using the chokehold technique Eric Garner would of right now been alive, and would of been able to defend himself from this injustice.
The last reason of why the police officer who killed Eric Garner should be held responsible for his death is because this has not been the only case where they have killed someone innocent and of color. In the article it says, “Twenty years ago, an eerily similar killing rocked New York City. Anthony Baez, a 29-year-old Bronx man with chronic asthma died after being placed in a chokehold by a NYPD officer. What led to the the chokehold? A thrown football that accidentally hit two police cars. Officer Francis Livoti was first declared innocent by a state trial, but only received a 7.5 year sentence after the national court stepped in and charged him” (OSSEI-OWUSU 2). This demonstrates how theres have been many more cases where they have killed people of color that are innocent. Eric Garner and Anthony Baez have not been the only ones that have suffered from police brutality. This supports the argument that the police who killed Eric Garner should be held responsible because if they do not do anything about this then they are probably going to continue doing this because they are going to realize that the government is not going to do anything about. They are not going to do anything about it because they are unfair to people of color and believe everything that the police officer’s say.
In conclusion, my reasons for why the police officer who killed Eric garner should be held responsible for his death are: Garner wasn’t doing anything bad, the officer who killed Eric Garner used a chokehold technique which is already banned, and this has not been the only case where they killed someone innocent. Police brutality is a problem that has been happening to only innocent people of color which needs to stop because nobody wants that to happen to themselves. This affects society and people of color because it makes them worried. Also it makes them feel bad about their race. In order to stop police brutality we need to protest more. If we do this then the government will start to realize that what we are saying is the truth and that the police officer who killed Eric Garner should be held responsible for his death. We need to make a change to be fair with everybody so that nobody feels bad about their race. Also we need to make a change so that police brutality would not happen again.
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