The Real Criminals
Why authority figures are cleared of murder
“On my honor,
I will never betray my badge,
my integrity, my character,
or the public trust.
I will always have the courage
to hold myself and others
accountable for our actions.
I will always uphold the Constitution,
the community,
and the agency I serve,
so help me God.”
As the life of 43 year old Eric Garner slipped away, so did the trust of the public in law enforcement officers around the country. A nation sat stunned after Daniel Pantaleo, a 29 year old police officer with the NYPD was not indicted after placing Garner in a chokehold. A cell phone video went viral, showing the altercation between Garner and local NYPD officers. In the video, Garner makes no move to hit the surrounding officers and makes no verbal or physical l threat to them whatsoever.
(This video is lengthy as the original one was taken down. To see the actual incident, skip to 1:00).
“I can’t breathe” he pleaded. Why is it that these cops could not take verbal and nonverbal cues that clearly signaled there was no impending threat by Garner? Maybe it’s the fact that cops misread his body language. In a TED Talk done by Amy Cuddy, she explains about body language, and gives a general idea about what certain stances mean. Referencing the “animal kingdom, they are about expanding. So you make yourself big, you stretch out, you take up space, you’re basically opening up.”
“I’m minding my business officer.”
“Do not touch me.”
Garner sure didn’t look like he was opening up. These pictures are screen-shotted directly from the video. In fact, he looks as if he is surrendering, a common non verbal cue that is known around the world.
Do cops fear losing their lives that much that they skim over the non verbal cues? It isn’t just about body language but tone of voice as well. In a study done, “vocal signals of emotions using the two-culture approach, in which participants from two populations that are maximally different in terms of language and culture are compared” (http://www.pnas.org/content/107/6/2408.full). Each the Himba and English participants heard a story and then were played vocalization sounds. One was to match the emotion of the story and the other was to distract.
The results concluded that the Himba listeners matched the story to the right tone at a “level that was significantly higher than would be expected by chance.” Back up for just a moment: two COMPLETELY different cultures were able to match tones in a voice of people whom they had never heard before. Yet an innocent man gets murdered in a language well recognized by the officers seen in the video.
I think that officers should have more training to understand what things mean. I’m not saying they should become completely sidetracked by their main job at hand. But I think that it would confuse a lot less people and save a lot more lives.
It’s not just Garner, it’s not just blacks or whites. This issue is something that’s deeper than race; it’s an issue of understanding someone as a human being.
