We all know politicians love their tax revenue. But is it worth risking killing someone over a few bucks?
That’s what happened to Eric Garner in Staten Island in July. He was confronted by the NYPD for selling loose cigarettes for 75 cents on the black market — a crime for which he had been repeatedly arrested in the past.
Garner, who was passively uncooperative but did not resist officers with force, ended up dead. It was all caught on tape. An officer grabbed his neck to take him down and squeezed for several seconds. The city medical examiner described this as a “chokehold.” Perhaps it would not have been enough to kill a person in good health, but Garner suffered from several medical conditions, including asthma. He complained repeatedly, each time more quietly, that he could not breathe, and then he finally stopped breathing. The city medical examiner ruled that neck and chest compression from the arrest was the cause of Garner’s death.
The crime of selling “loosies” was not considered a serious one in the past. Many corner stores in New York City once sold them quietly upon request. But former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s cartoonish anti-tobacco crusade changed that and everything else. Smoking in public places was banned. Punitive taxes and a legal minimum price of $10.50 were imposed in an effort to push prices ever-upward, so that a brand-name pack of 20 cigarettes now costs as much as $14 in New York City.
As a result, the illicit sale of loose and untaxed cigarettes became more commonplace. Lawmakers had turned every non-wealthy smoker into a criminal, and police made it a priority to curb this criminal creation of political meddling.
The hyper-criminalization added to the pressure on every good cop to become a bad one. Police are expected to use some force when arresting even passively uncooperative suspects. And in New York, they are instructed in the “broken-windows” strategy of policing, by which even minor offenses are vigorously enforced. This strategy is credited with making New York safe and livable again. But cops who turn no blind eye do not mix well with meddling politicians whose nanny-state legislative initiatives intrude ever further into victimless private behavior.
Enough people die in police confrontations already — justifiable and otherwise. But New York’s crusading politicians have discovered a way to maximize the number of needless tests of their cops’ restraint and common sense. Their excessive preoccupation with snuffing out citizens’ private decisions made it inevitable that an Eric Garner would eventually die, and surely he will not be the last.
A grand jury has now declined to indict the officer involved. This has prompted voices on all points of the political spectrum — even those skeptical of the rush to blame police in the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. — to call for reforms that increase police transparency and accountability.
That is an excellent goal. Another one would be to hold accountable politicians who raise their own profiles by criminalizing harmless behavior under the pretext of public health and safety. In this case, that remains in the hands of New York City’s voters, who can start by refusing to empower demagogues who harbor unhealthy health obsessions.
