Grand Jury Declines to Indict Officer in Ferguson New York Killing

Let's see,
  • NYC the police gave a choke hold to an unarmed black man, and choke holds are banned by the NYC Police Department
  • The man repeatedly yelled out, "I can't breathe, I can't breathe" but they continued until he passed out. Minutes later he died.
  • The medical examiners concluded his death resulted from pressure on his neck and throat from the choke hold, along with “the compression of his chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police." Made worse because of his asthma.
  • There were twenty people who saw the illegal choke hold and heard him screaming.
  • There was a very clear, very graphic, video taken of the event
  • Nobody disputes any of the events in the video or the charges.
  • And a grand jury said that there was not enough evidence to allow it to go to trial.
Well, okay then…


By the way, for what it's worth, Grand Juries are not Court Juries. Their task is simply to hear the prosecutor's case to see if there is enough evidence against the accused to justify a case going forward. They don’t need, and almost never receive, both sides. They are not trying the case, just seeing if the evidence merits a trial. In the new York City case, as with the Ferguson, MO case, they received ALL of the evidence on BOTH sides and in effect tried the case. It wasn't illegal to do that, but extremely unusual and not at all what they were called together to do. That had much to do with their decision.