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I try not to get caught up posting in this forum, but occasionally a topic is too tempting to pass up, so forgive me.

There is some merit to the argument of not resisting arrest. He was a huge guy and while he was not violent he was clearly, at the point where the video clip shows, not ready to meekly offer his wrists to the cuffs. Now here is what really bothers me about this situation. The video that I have seen only shows a very brief span of time and does not show the entire interaction. If it did I would very concerned about a swarm of five officers including a plain clothes officer swooping down and gang tackling a guy who was alleged to be committing a (by most reasonable standards) a minor crime.

I watch this clip and I wonder how did this situation so rapidly go from relative calm to a pretty brutal take down. It makes one wonder if there is a productivity driven time limit imposed on encounters like this which trigger to rush to physical confrontation. I find it unusual that there would be so many officers just coincidently on the scene, and IIRC from the initial news reports, that local store owners had complained about Mr. Garner's activities previously. It seems like this was an organized foray to arrest him. He had been reported to have been arrested before, one wonders whether that experience was a violent one also? Not that it predicts the actions of the next time. In either event it does not seem to be a very well thought out encounter. I wonder why more time was not spent in communicating with him? Being surrounded by 5 officers he wasn't going anywhere. Again it is hard to judge without more information but the opinion I am developing is that somebody screwed up and the whole thing was swept under the rug.

I try very hard to support our law enforcement people. They have a hard enough job doing what they can to deal with a mind bending array of issues. Here is the but and it is a loud one. There is and has been a growing attitude change in some officers if you are not with us, then you deserve anything that happens when you are against us. I might even agree with this in certain situations but not in all. I am not sure that everyone who becomes an officer has the same boundary lines that I would, nor even has the temperament or capacity to be able to discern the difference in situations. When one of these things happen I always wonder if there wasn't a bit of this attitude leaking out.

We have militarized our domestic police forces, we have supported the argument that cops need to be able to match force with drug czars and gangs. The average cop I see today is in much better physical shape and spends much more time in the gym and weight room than the cops did when I was growing up. Having the ability to use great force comes with the responsibility of knowing when to use it. I think this time a mistake was made.