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If all a suspect has to do is say "I can't breath" during a physical confrontation with police & they have to let him up, then both police & society as a whole, are in big trouble.
If I was chocking someone and they could say, 'I can't breathe', ELEVEN TIMES, I would assume they can breathe.
If you are an asthmatic, saying "I can't breathe" means your airway is starting to close. They mean it is getting difficult for them to draw a breath. They may actually still be moving a little air, but without immediate medical intervention, their airway will close and they will die.
Bottom line, if someone says they can't breathe, you take them at their word.
Am I using an illegal choke or a perfectly legal head lock as taught in the police academy? I'm an EMT & we always say "if they can speak, they can breathe". The suspect in NYC died of a heart attack, not from choking.
That's weird because I've seen a friend choke and she could breathe (enough to continue trying to cough up the object) but was still choking. Another friend was having an asthma attack and could talk some and was obviously breathing but in distress.
If you can gasp out a short phase in between short breaths is that really as simple as "you can breathe"? Breathing while having an episode of sorts is breathing but still requires medical attention which was clearly not given.
If the person is subdued and cuffed one can cautiously verify their health status.
If you are an asthmatic, saying "I can't breathe" means your airway is starting to close. They mean it is getting difficult for them to draw a breath. They may actually still be moving a little air, but without immediate medical intervention, their airway will close and they will die.
Bottom line, if someone says they can't breathe, you take them at their word.
Every suspect who's been sat on by police in the history of policing has said "Get off me, I can't breath!". Just like every kid who's ever had his older brother wrestle him to the floor shouts "Get off me, I can't breath". If the police have to take everyone at their word if they claim they can't breath, how would they ever arrest someone? What if they say they're having a heart attack? Or that they think their appendix is going to burst. Of their liver hurts? You can't just let a suspect up because they complain something hurts.
That's weird because I've seen a friend choke and she could breathe (enough to continue trying to cough up the object) but was still choking. Another friend was having an asthma attack and could talk some and was obviously breathing but in distress.
If you can gasp out a short phase in between short breaths is that really as simple as "you can breathe"? Breathing while having an episode of sorts is breathing but still requires medical attention which was clearly not given.
If the person is subdued and cuffed one can cautiously verify their health status.
I agree with you that this man should have been given aid more quickly once he was restrained & in cuffs. I have no problem with the headlock they used to get him on the ground though.
Since the need to put someone on the ground in such a hold is because they are posing the threat implied by resisting arrest, and no option was given for "release PERFECTLY LEGAL TAKEDOWN HOLD ONLY when suspect is clearly complying with orders, has stopped struggling and has placed hands behind back/on top of head in clear sign of surrender", I chose Continue Choke Hold.
Every perp ever has said get off me, I can't breathe. The two times I put someone on the ground while doing the LEO thing, both said its equivalent "you're hurting me" and neither was being held like Garner. I honestly think every sassy perp who ever got put on the ground has said something along the lines of "I can't breathe" or the even more likely "you're hurting me." My own replies to such statements were not exactly cotton candy and rainbows, I assure you.
That said, the fact that 5-6 cops were assigned via task force initiative to arrest garner for evading the 7.5 cent tax on loose cigarettes is the issue, not the takedown hold, not the bleating of "I can't breathe" and not the woulda_shoulda_coulda Monday morning QB stuff about much better all of us would done than Palanteo did. No, the issue is that a freaking police strike force was dispatched to deal with an arch criminal committing the heinous act of not paying DeBlasio his 7.5 cent tribute.
I think it would be much easier if people could use the two word phrase "time out". At that point the police need to release the person and they each have an hour to cool off. At that point, the person being confronted by the officers could report to the police station or call 311 and have the police meet them at a later time.
If I'm choking a person, it is to save my life. Screw the person I am defending against.
My hypothesis is of course irrelevant to the New York case.
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