Officer Melvin Santiago (L)....Eric Garner (R)
One week ago today, 23 y/o Jersey City Police
Officer Melvin Santiago was murdered by a 27 y/o career violent thug named Lawrence
Campbell.
Just four days later and about 10 miles away, on
Thursday, July 17th, a Staten Island man named Eric Garner was
killed by police officers in a scuffle (allegedly over his selling “illegal
cigarettes”) in the Tompkinsville section of that borough.
The two cases clearly define the very rough edge
between the two prominent urban cultures, the productive mainstream and the “thug-life”
culture of the urban poor.
To be sure, BOTH Santiago and Garner were victims of
that stark culture clash. Santiago was targeted by a violent career thug
because he was a cop. The assailant was so insipidly convinced of the weakness
of “polite society” that he told friends to “watch
TV tonight, I’m gonna be famous.” He actually thought he’d live through
that wanton act of war.
And why not? His family and friends quickly erected
a street memorial in his honor (which the Mayor of Jersey City promptly had
torn down). His widow ruefully added, “He
should’ve killed more cops.”
On Staten Island, Eric Garner was no Lawrence
Campbell. If anything he was an “anti-Campbell.” While Garner also had a “lengthy
arrest record,” it was mostly for his “crime of choice” selling “loosies”
(single cigarettes) to make a few extra bucks. From all accounts, he appeared to
be a “gentle giant” (he stood over 6’4” and over 300 pounds).
In the exchange between Staten Island Police and
Garner, he seemed polite, though uncooperative, “Every time you see me, you want to mess with me,” Garner can be
heard saying on the cell phone video, “I'm
tired of it. It stops today. I'm minding my business please just leave me
alone."
The line, “It
stops today,” is probably what angered Police, who probably took that as a
challenge to their authority and decided, at that point that they wouldn’t talk
to Garner any further and couldn’t walk away from even this low level, “crime.”
For the Police Officer’s part, they are far more
used to dealing with the Lawrence Campbell’s of the world than the Eric Garner’s
and ultimately they all wind up getting lumped into the same category; “low-life skell.”
Both Santiago’s and Garner’s deaths were equally
shocking, equally outrageous, and should be equally disturbing, but the
reaction to Garner’s death at the hands of a number of much smaller Police Officers
has been of a much higher pitch and volume and that volume seems only to be
growing as that over Officer Santiago’s assassination fades fainter with each
passing day.
I refuse to accept the inane idea that this is somehow
due to the productive mainstream being inherently “more self-reflective.”
Officer Santiago DID NOT die taking on “the inherent
risks of that job.” He was targeted for assassination by an entire community...a
community rooted in the culture that they are oppressed by the productive
mainstream and have rightful grievances against that community, its established
order and certainly against the representatives of that established order on
the streets – the Police.
THAT is the crux of this dilemma.
And for the record, the “thuglife” culture does NOT “have
a point,” they have NO actual grievances rooted in reality. That culture is a
cancer and so is the socio-political movement that has sprung up around it, led
by the likes of Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and other (political and legal)
parasitic opportunists more than happy to make hay off the deaths of the urban
poor for their own personal gain.
Today editorialists across the country, who as Denis
Hamil acknowledges, have many times praised other, “heroic cops
and their selfless, ultimate sacrifices for our city,” are now
deriding the cops who apparently and egregiously overreacted in subduing a man
who was non-violently resisting arrest as “punks” and “cowards.”
Without any apparent irony, Denis
Hamil recalls how, “I mourned with 8
million others when Officer Pete Figoski gave his life bravely to a punk’s
bullet in the 75th Precinct two weeks before Christmas three years ago, leaving
four shattered kids”...AND “...gazed
into the hole in the city’s heart at Officer Dennis Guerra’s funeral as his
widow and children watched his coffin carried from the requiem Mass in Rockaway
after he perished trying to save lives in a Coney Island fire.”
Is that the standard Hamil wishes to
employ; “dead cop = good/hero, while those who put their own safety first =
bad/abusive”?
For THAT is very much the basic protocol of the NYPD
and Police Departments everywhere – “Put the
safety and the lives of our Officers FIRST...second and third.”
What happened to Eric Garner should never happen to
anyone and it DOES bring into
question many legitimate Civil Liberties issues.
WHY
was Garner apparently continually targeted by Police over such a minor offense.
WHAT
justified the initial NYPD stop over “selling unlicensed cigarettes,” given
that he had just broken up a fight and seemingly was NOT engaged in selling
contraband at the time? Granted that once he began resisting arrest (yes, even
non-violently) Police procedures didn’t allow them to “back off,” but WHY the
initial confrontation?
Virtually every witness attests that Eric Garner had
just broken up a fight before being confronted by Police. So WHY such a large police response to such
a non-violent crime and a suspect who, according to the available videos, was
not acting aggressively with Police in any perceptible way?
These are issues that the objections to the broad “discretion”
given to Officers under the recently eliminated “Stop & Frisk” policy were
based upon.
However, it also goes to the heart of the basic
theory that Bill Bratton (Mayor DeBlasio’s
hand-picked Police Commissioner) has staked his entire police career and
reputation on – that by vigorously prosecuting low-level offenders, many
high-level offenders with outstanding warrants will be swept up and off the
streets.
Without question, crime is the key distinction AND
the primary trigger in the war between the productive mainstream and the “thuglife”
cultures. To the former crime is not only chaotic and dysgenic (high-value
people are most often victimized by very low-value individuals), but it’s
also...and more importantly, “very bad for business”...however, to the latter,
crime is both a protest against the seemingly often arbitrary rules of the
established order, but their most effective, if not only way to “fight back.”
Street cops know this. They know they are in a very
real war being waged by a small, but sizable culture within a culture, fed and
encouraged by dozens of community activists and lawyers looking to profit off
the mayhem.
Horrifically enough, it’s this warlike clash of
cultures, along with the protocols of our Police Departments (NEVER back down
from a criminal suspect) that triggers tragedies like what happened to Eric Garner.
It comes down, in part, to how vigorously the
productive mainstream wants its streets policed?
To completely “lock crime down,” offers the ugly
specter of more Eric Garners, while a less vigorous approach serves entirely
the interests of the Lawrence Campbell’s of this world.
There’s really no good outcome UNTIL the entire “thuglife”
culture is eradicated either through education or incarceration.
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