It may well have been that, as U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue told reporters in announcing the Justice Department’s decision not to bring civil-rights charges against Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo in connection with Eric Garner’s death, that the Staten Island cop could not be determined to have “willfully used more force than he reasonably could have believed was necessary under the circumstances.”
It could be argued that Officer Pantaleo reflexively moved to a chokehold after discovering that Mr. Garner, who weighed 395 pounds, was too bulky to be controlled by the seat-belt hold he originally tried, making it difficult to conclude it was a conscious decision in which he fully considered the potential consequences.
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