Page 41 - Sept Oct Issue
P. 41
Elite Investigative Journal
Taking Back the Jails, pg 41-42
©2014-2015 Press Enter Resolve, LLC
Photo Courtesy of jmwalshlaw.com
Taking Back the Jails
By Larry M. Elkin
There were just a handful of bystanders physically level of accountability for oficers on the street.
present at the encounter that ended in Eric Garner’s Recording incidents that occur in public can protect
death. Yet thanks to a video recording, those following oficers who do their jobs well and deter those who
the news nationwide counted as witnesses. would otherwise abuse their position.
New York Police Department oficer Daniel Pantaleo There may also have been witnesses the night inmate
placed Garner, a 43-year-old from Staten Island, Darren Rainey was forced into a scalding shower at
in a chokehold during an arrest gone wrong last the Dade Correctional Institution in Florida two years
month, despite the fact that the Department has long ago, but those witnesses would have been Rainey’s
banned maneuvers that place pressure on the throat or fellow inmates, who lacked cameras or smartphones;
windpipe. Garner can be heard on the video, captured they did later tell investigators they heard Rainey’s
by Ramsey Orta on his phone, complaining that he screams. The other witnesses would have been the
couldn’t breathe. A medical examiner determined that guards who put Rainey in that small stall and left
Garner’s death was a homicide. Pantaleo has been him there for two hours, though they claimed to have
stripped of badge and gun pending investigation and checked on Rainey “periodically.” By the time they
possible prosecution. pulled him out, Rainey was dead, scalded so badly
No matter whether Garner’s death results in criminal that chunks of lesh were reportedly falling off his
body.
charges, it will be impossible for the NYPD to ignore it.
The video’s release sparked rallies, online outrage and There are no cellphones at New York City’s Rikers
a discussion at City Hall about relations between the Island, either. In one of the facility’s jails that house
Department and the communities its oficers protect. male inmates between the ages of 16 and 18, no
Mayor Bill de Blasio, in a statement following the bystanders could record what they saw or heard when
corrections oficers beat, stomped and pepper-sprayed
release of Garner’s autopsy results, said, “We all have a a teenager who fell asleep in a classroom. Teachers
responsibility to work together to heal the wounds from heard him crying for his mother as his body thumped
the decades of mistrust and create a culture where the against the loor of the corridor where guards had
Police Department and the communities they protect dragged him to administer the assault, according to
respect each other.” a report released this week by U.S. Attorney Preet
(1) In order for that to happen, there has to be some Bharara, who described a “deep-seated culture of
41
Taking Back the Jails, pg 41-42
©2014-2015 Press Enter Resolve, LLC
Photo Courtesy of jmwalshlaw.com
Taking Back the Jails
By Larry M. Elkin
There were just a handful of bystanders physically level of accountability for oficers on the street.
present at the encounter that ended in Eric Garner’s Recording incidents that occur in public can protect
death. Yet thanks to a video recording, those following oficers who do their jobs well and deter those who
the news nationwide counted as witnesses. would otherwise abuse their position.
New York Police Department oficer Daniel Pantaleo There may also have been witnesses the night inmate
placed Garner, a 43-year-old from Staten Island, Darren Rainey was forced into a scalding shower at
in a chokehold during an arrest gone wrong last the Dade Correctional Institution in Florida two years
month, despite the fact that the Department has long ago, but those witnesses would have been Rainey’s
banned maneuvers that place pressure on the throat or fellow inmates, who lacked cameras or smartphones;
windpipe. Garner can be heard on the video, captured they did later tell investigators they heard Rainey’s
by Ramsey Orta on his phone, complaining that he screams. The other witnesses would have been the
couldn’t breathe. A medical examiner determined that guards who put Rainey in that small stall and left
Garner’s death was a homicide. Pantaleo has been him there for two hours, though they claimed to have
stripped of badge and gun pending investigation and checked on Rainey “periodically.” By the time they
possible prosecution. pulled him out, Rainey was dead, scalded so badly
No matter whether Garner’s death results in criminal that chunks of lesh were reportedly falling off his
body.
charges, it will be impossible for the NYPD to ignore it.
The video’s release sparked rallies, online outrage and There are no cellphones at New York City’s Rikers
a discussion at City Hall about relations between the Island, either. In one of the facility’s jails that house
Department and the communities its oficers protect. male inmates between the ages of 16 and 18, no
Mayor Bill de Blasio, in a statement following the bystanders could record what they saw or heard when
corrections oficers beat, stomped and pepper-sprayed
release of Garner’s autopsy results, said, “We all have a a teenager who fell asleep in a classroom. Teachers
responsibility to work together to heal the wounds from heard him crying for his mother as his body thumped
the decades of mistrust and create a culture where the against the loor of the corridor where guards had
Police Department and the communities they protect dragged him to administer the assault, according to
respect each other.” a report released this week by U.S. Attorney Preet
(1) In order for that to happen, there has to be some Bharara, who described a “deep-seated culture of
41
