Elizabeth McKelvy
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON – Former New York police officer Dan Bongino joined WMAL Thursday and shared his surprise that a Staten Island grand jury decided against bringing charges in the case of Eric Garner, who died this summer after a New York City police officer placed him in a chokehold during his arrest.
“My NYPD cop friends are actually stunned too,” Bongino told WMAL. “I think they thought it was a given, given the video and the administrative limits on any sort of a chokehold by the NYPD.”
The New York City Police Department explicitly banned the use of chokeholds by its officers in 1993.
Garner, who was 350-pounds and asthmatic, was resisting arrest for selling loose cigarettes when the police officer attempted to wrestle him to the ground. Bongino said in the Garner incident, the officer started with a headlock that turned into a chokehold.
“It doesn’t look like in the initial part he was trying to choke him, it looks like he was attempting to take him down…I don’t know what was going through his head, but it looks like he may have panicked given the guy’s size and just instinctively went for this chokehold.”
Bongino reminded that that police officer did not initiate the events the day of the incident, but responding to a 911 call.
“When Garner says “Not today, I’m not doing this today,” and put his hands up, and it doesn’t look like he puts his hands up to surrender, he puts his hands up because he doesn’t want to be handcuffed, what do you want them to do?”
Copyright (c) 2014 WMAL. Photo via thefederalistpapers.org.
