Eugene Robinson: Grand jury decision takes breath away

I can’t breathe.

Those were Eric Garner’s last words, and they now apply to me. The decision by a Staten Island grand jury to not indict the police officer who killed him takes my breath away.

In the depressing reality series that should be called “No Country for Black Men,” this sick plot twist was shocking beyond belief. There should have been an indictment in the Ferguson case, in my view, but at least the events that led to Michael Brown’s killing were in dispute. Garner’s homicide was captured on video. We saw him being choked, heard him plead of his distress, watched as no attempt was made to revive him and his life slipped away.

African-American men are being taught a lesson about how this society values, or devalues, our lives. I’ve always said the notion that racism is a thing of the past was absurd – and that those who espoused the “post-racial” myth were either naive or disingenuous. Now, tragically, you see why.

Garner, 43, was an African-American man. On July 17, he allegedly committed the heinous crime of selling individual cigarettes on the street. A group of New York City police officers approached and surrounded him. As seen in cellphone video footage recorded by an onlooker, Garner was puzzled that the officers seemed to be taking him into custody for such a piddling offense. He was a big man, but at no point did he strike out at the officers or show them disrespect.

But he wasn’t assuming a submissive posture as quickly as the cops wanted. Officer Daniel Pantaleo placed him in a chokehold, compressing his windpipe – a maneuver that the New York Police Department outlawed two decades ago. Garner complained repeatedly that he was having trouble breathing. The officers wrestled him to the sidewalk, where he died. An emergency medical crew was summoned, but officers made no immediate attempt to resuscitate him.

The coroner ruled Garner’s death a homicide. He suffered from asthma, and Pantaleo’s chokehold killed him.

The Staten Island prosecutor presented evidence against Pantaleo to a grand jury. On Wednesday it was announced that the grand jury had declined to indict Pantaleo on any charge.

Demonstrators took to the streets. What else was there to do but protest?

This travesty – there’s no other word for it – came just nine days after a St. Louis County grand jury declined to indict Officer Darren Wilson for Brown’s death.

There are two big issues here. One involves the excessive license we now give to police – permission, essentially, to do whatever they must in order to guarantee safe streets. The pendulum has clearly swung too far in the law-and-order direction, at the expense of liberty and justice.

The other big issue, inescapably, is race. Garner was engaged in an activity that warranted no more than a warning to move along. But I recognize that he also committed a capital offense: He was the wrong color.

This story was originally published December 5, 2014 at 5:32 PM with the headline "Eugene Robinson: Grand jury decision takes breath away."