Some thoughts on Eric Garner

Yesterday, a New York City officials announced that a grand jury had cleared the police officer captured on video putting Staten Island resident Eric Garner in a choke hold. Garner later died of a heart attack. The announcement sparked large protests throughout the city, and smaller protests across the country.

A few varied thoughts on the incident:

Body cameras

My Washington Post colleague Nia-Malika Henderson wrote yesterday that the failure to indict the officer despite what appears to be some pretty damning video evidence strikes a blow against the use of body cameras. While I agree with Henderson that President Obama’s proposed police reforms don’t go nearly far enough, I don’t think her conclusion about body cameras is right. 

Body cameras are a form of government transparency. Though there is some evidence that they motivate better behavior in both cops and citizens, I don’t think most people who advocates their use would argue that they’d be a panacea in thwarting police misconduct. Instead, like other transparency policies, their primary function is to expose any problems that may exist. The video footage of the Eric Garner arrest has done exactly that.

The video showed that this cop used a level of force that to many people seems excessive.

The video provided a neutral narrative of the arrest. If not for the video, we would be left only with the police account of the arrest versus the account of a few witnesses. And remember, the officers’ first report on the confrontation didn’t mention the chokehold.

The video convinced people who might have otherwise sided with the police. Mediaite editor Andrew Kirell noted on Twitter yesterday that he was pleased to see so many conservatives and right-leaning people in his feed expressing outrage over the lack of an indictment.

The video demonstrated that the system is broken. The lack of an indictment stunned many people because the video seemed so compelling. Because the grand jury nevertheless declined to indict, those people must now grapple with the fact that either the grand jury system is broken or New York’s use of force laws allow for what we saw in that video. That is, either the grand jury improperly applied the law to clear a cop, or the law itself is terribly flawed.

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