Talk:Killing of Eric Garner/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Why isn’t Ramsey Orta’s subsequent harassment by NYPD not more heavily discussed in the article?

I think he’s deserving of an article of his own, frankly, but the disgusting treatment he’s received is pretty much directly in response to his role in publicizing his friend’s murder, and the media has really failed this guy by moving on as soon as Garner stopped being headline news. On the other hand, Orta is still incarcerated, and I fear and more attention to his plight may make his situation worse. Dude was fed rat poison, for God’s sake. There are plenty of reliably sourced interviews detailing his abuse at the hands of NYPD and corrections. 69.124.33.62 (talk) 22:22, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

If you (or someone else) can prepare a properly sourced draft write-up, we can include it. (If you don't have editing permissions for the article page you can put your draft here with an edit request.) Bubka42 (talk) 04:34, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Funnily enough I was just looking at this; earlier versions of this article (as recently as 2019) actually had described all of this, but was subsequently removed (I didn't have time to look up why). So you don't even have to write stuff you can just confirm the stuff previously written and put it back up. Only things is I don't know why it was removed, but I can't see why you wouldn't include it. Eric.c.zhang (talk) 04:46, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. Apparently this edit removed the content, a possible vandalism attempt that no one subsequently reverted. Even before this, there was a series of edits from a now-blocked editor that cut the material short with virtually no explanation. After a bit of searching, it appears to me that this revision has the most developed section on Ramsey Orta. Should I restore it? Bubka42 (talk) 09:19, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes given this discussion please do. Eric.c.zhang (talk) 18:55, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Done. Bubka42 (talk) 00:11, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

@Bubka42 and Eric.c.zhang: - thank you - I support the reinstatement. 69 also - thanks. starship.paint (talk) 01:12, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm confused about two things with Ramsey Orta? One - why is this such a large segment here? It should be broken off as a seperate article and trimmed to specific facts relating to Eric Gardner. Secondly, the accusation that there are pellets and an attempt to poison Mr Orta remains unsubstantied other than his own testimony, and the source article for it is not a reliable source. Stating this as a non-contraversal fact, is incorrect.

Thank You for listening.

166.84.1.3 (talk) 05:23, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

At best you've made a case for prefacing some statement with "Ramsey Orta says that …" and let the reader decide, but it makes no difference because every reader will decide there's no reason to doubt Orta and the sicknesses experienced by other prisoners can probably be well-document.204.155.226.3 (talk) 02:29, 14 July 2020 (UTC)Christopher Lawrence Simpson

Most important fact missing

The most important fact here is did the police see Garner selling loosies before they even approached him? If they did not SEE him selling loosies, but merely suspected that he was selling loosies on no better evidence than that they SAW him out on a sidewalk, that makes the case for murder, because any death that results from an illegal action is murder. . There's a famous case where a kid decided to participate in illegality. He was helping his friend burgle an empty house. They went in, unarmed. The house wasn't empty. The owner legally shot and killed the boy's friend. That boy is now serving a very long prison-sentence for the murder of his friend, because that murder arose as a result of a prior decision to engage in law-breaking. Obviously the boy had no DESIRE to see his friend killed. That's no the theory. The theory is that if you agree to break the law, you have "agreed to" a wide range of consequences that can be foreseen to be possible results of your decision to break the law. One of those possible results is that the house isn't empty and the occupant shoots and kills an accomplice. You know that is a possible result, but, in disregard of the possibility of that happening, you perform the crime anyway. What had been, before, a possible result, then changes into an ACTUAL result, and you are guilty of that, because you went in wide open knowing that it could happen, and the knowledge that it could happen didn't deter you.

Similarly, if the entire encounter with Garner was subsequent to an illegal attempt at false arrest, well, you know what can happen before you start. The subject might resist. (You know that in any LEGAL arrest too, but since the attempt to make a LEGAL arrest isn't a crime, the criminal culpability is different. If that boy's friend had been shot and killed without intent during a LEGAL activity, different standards of negligence, intent, depraved disregard, and recklessness would apply.) Even if at the beginning of the illegal act (approaching Garner, or breaking and entering into the house) there is no INTENT that someone would end up dead, it doesn't matter. By embarking on an illegal activity you are rolling the dice on all sorts of outcomes (which include the false-arrest victim dying in a struggle, or the house being occupied by someone who kills your friend). The police should have had sufficient regard for Garner's health and life, and for the lives of bystanders and officers, as to not start a violent arrest which could result in any number of people getting hurt somehow someway (just as the boy burglar should have had sufficient regards for his friend's life not to incur the RISK that the house would be occupied by someone who kills the friend.) If the police disregard the danger and commence an illegal arrest anyway, they are criminally liable for all outcomes of their illegal choice. I mean, suppose Garner had survived but murdered an innocent person? The cops would be guilty of felony murder of THAT person (Garner would be guilty too, of straight-up murder) by the same rationale: they should not have initiated the initial illegal action which caused the outcome, even if they did not intend or premeditate the outcome. Their obligation goes beyond not killing people -- it includes not even exposing people to a reckless or depraved or negligent (I don't know the word for the standard) risk of being killed. The boy burglar had an obligation that went beyond not pointing a gun at and deliberately killing his friend: he had an obligation not to participate in something illegal the result of which was his friend bein killed by someone acting within the law.

If the entire decision to approach Garner was illegal, then EVEN IF you could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that no chokehold was ever used, and also prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Garner didn't die of suffocation, and also prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Garner would have killed an officer if Garner had not been killed (which is ludicrous, but suppose you COULD prove it), none of those sideshows of litigated facts would matter: The police decided to perform an illegal action, and someone died as a result of their decision to break the law. That death, no matter HOW they slice and dice all the medical evidence and arguments about intent and malice and reckless disregard and depraved indifference, is "felony murder" because that death resulted from a cold rational decision to break the law.

All of this changes if any police actually DID SEE Garner, AT THAT TIME, sell so much as one loosie cigarette. If that's true then the decision to arrest Garner was not illegal. That still doesn't exonerate the cops, but it means you can't convict them on the "felony murder" theory but must go some other route.

So the all-important fact here is whether anyone involved in the arrest actually SAW Garner selling loosies. If that is NOT the case, the arrest was groundless and just illegal harassment, and ANY death resulting from that illegal choice, whether that death be premeditated, depraved indifference, negligence, accidental, manslaughter, ANYTHING, that death is "felony murder" just the same as your unarmed accomplice getting killed during your burglary is a felony murder for which YOU could be convicted. And despite the importance of whether anyone actually SAW Garner selling cigarettes, this Article doesn't answer that question. I'm finding that they "approached Garner on suspicion of selling loosies". I'm not finding "xyz saw Garner selling loosies" and I'm not finding "Nobody actually saw Garner selling loosies". That's a pretty bad omission.204.155.226.3 (talk) 02:29, 14 July 2020 (UTC)Christopher Lawrence Simpson