NYC AWARDS CAREER CRIMINAL’S FAMILY $5.9 MILLION

Sergeants Benevolent Association head Ed Mullins describes the settlement with Eric Garner’s family "obscene" and "shameful"

One year ago, Eric Garner, 43, was selling untaxed cigarettes on a Staten Island street. Store owners nearby complained to the police. He had several previous arrests on the same offense and was out on bail awaiting trial on the latest charge. When NYPD officers attempted to arrest him, the 350 pound giant resisted arrest. One officer helped subdue him with an arm around the neck, which the media described as a prohibited chokehold. Garner croaked and the medical examiner labeled his death as a homicide.

On Monday the city awarded the family of Eric Garner $5.9 million as a wrongful death settlement.

Ed Mullins, head of the Sergeants Benevolent Association described the settlement as “obscene” and “shameful.” The sergeants union leader said:

Where is the justice for New York taxpayers? In my view, the city has chosen to abandon its fiscal responsibility to all of its citizens and genuflect to the select few who curry favor with the city government. Mr. Garner’s family should not be rewarded simply because he repeatedly chose to break the law and resist arrest.

NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer justified the extraordinary size of the settlement because of the “extraordinary impact” Garner’s death had on the entire country. Stringer said, “It forced us to examine the state of race relations, and the relationship between our police force and the people they serve.”

New York’s Sandinista loving Mayor Bill de Blasio said:

No sum of money can make this family whole, but hopefully the Garner family can find some peace and finality from today's settlement. By reaching a resolution, family and other loved ones can move forward even though we know they will never forget this tragic incident."

Stringer and de Blasio ought to be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail. Stringer based the size of the settlement not on the circumstances surrounding Garner's death, but rather on the fact that the whole country got exercised over his death. And by approving the amount, de Blasio agreed with him. That truly is obscene and shameful.

Was Garner’s death a wrongful death? Far from it, in my professional opinion. Tragic it was, but when a career criminal with a history of more than 30 arrests and weighing 350 pounds resists arrest and it takes several officers to subdue him so that he subsequently dies, that is not a wrongful death.

Those who side or sympathize with Garner will say that most of his arrests were for petty crimes. True, but they were crimes nevertheless. And the city had ordered a crackdown on the sales of untaxed cigarettes, an offense Garner had made a career of.

Unlike the Garner case, there is a case in Gardena, California where the city shelled out $4.7 million to the family of an unarmed man who was shot dead by the police and to the family of another man who was wounded by the gunfire.

On June 2, 2013, Ricardo Diaz Zeferino was out looking for his brother’s stolen bicycle. Two of his friends, riding their own bikes, were also searching for the stolen bicycle. Gardena cops responding to the report of a bicycle stolen from a CVS pharmacy mistook Diaz Zeferino’s friends as the bike thieves. They were ordered to put their hands up. Diaz Zeferino ran up on foot to tell the cops they had the wrong men. When ordered to put his hands up, he kept raising and lowering them. According to the police report, when he appeared to remove something from his back pocket, the cops opened fire, killing him and wounding one of his friends.

On Tuesday U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson released dash cam videos of the shooting, the release of which had been fought by the city. The city filed a notice of appeal with the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals. The 9th quickly issued a stay which reversed the release, but it was too late because the videos had already hit the internet.

I can understand why the city fought against the release of the dash cam videos. The shooting really looks bad. On the videos it does not appear as though Diaz Zeferino presented an imminent threat to the lives of the officers.

That brings up a problem with videos. What appears to be a cold blooded killing may not at all have been what actually happened.

Illegal drugs may have played a part in the bizarre behavior of Diaz Zeferino. An autopsy revealed that at the time of his death he had alcohol and methamphetamine in his system.

The City of Gardena settled with the Diaz Zeferino family because it realized that if the family’s lawsuit went to trial, once a jury viewed those videos, its chances of winning were less than a snowball’s chance in hell. Not so with New York.

The Garner settlement sets a terrible precedent for NYC. From now on anytime cops kill an unarmed man and his death sets off disturbances and riots in other parts of the country, New York will have to shell out big bucks to offset the “extraordinary impact” the case had on the entire country.