Millions of Americans appears to have joined the Riot of the Week Club, a club that finds racism at the root of all police actions involving minorities, especially young black men. Ferguson, New York, Phoenix, Oakland, Denver … the club has chapters all across America ready to take to the streets whenever Al Sharpton sniffs out racism in any controversy involving police.
Anyone can join the club. The main qualification for membership is a willingness – nay, eagerness – to see racism behind every wrong – or alleged wrong – suffered by anyone in any confrontation with police officers. The club’s fastest growth in membership seems to be among high school and college students, which is understandable when “institutional racism” is an everyday topic of discussion in thousands of our nation’s classrooms.
But hold on. Let’s do a reality check before joining that parade. Let’s ask if there are better explanations for the incidents of excessive use of force by police, and maybe ask if there are too many laws distracting police from their most important job – catching real criminals.
Looking at facts is out of fashion in the new climate of protest. The case of the Staten Island, New York, “chockhold death” of Eric Garner is the latest example of this rush to blame police, so let’s look at what’s behind that incident.
Did New York police go out that day looking for a black man to kill? Of course, not. The police sergeant who was in charge of the squad that arrested Garner is black, so that accusation is utter nonsense. So, what really happened, and why was Garner targeted for arrest in the first place?
Sadly, not many of the protestors against the “injustice” of Garner’s chokehold death have asked that question. They are not interested in the background and reasons for the attempted arrest that started the chain of events that resulted in Garner’s tragic death. But they should be.
That background to the arrest is highly relevant, because Eric Garner would be alive today but for the greed of New York city government and the actions of the city’s mayor in pursuit of more tax revenue. You see, Eric Garner was selling “loosies,” individual cigarettes, for a dollar each on the streets of New York and not paying the $5.85 per-pack cigarette tax – the highest such tax in the country, by the way.
Here is an important point about the cigarette tax. The rationale for the escalating cigarette tax – not just in New York but across the nation – is to make cigarettes so expensive that people stop smoking. However, there is a flaw in the plan: Smoking cigarettes is itself not a crime. But that is no impediment to the nanny state: Government is looking out for you even when you want the government to mind its own business, not yours. Government will protect you against yourself by making the sin of smoking too expensive! Sheer genius, right? Wrong.
As a result of that $5.85 New York cigarette tax, the average retail price of a pack of cigarettes has risen to over $10 in New York City. That price has produced a thriving market for single cigarettes sold for a buck apiece.
That kind of tax avoidance could not be tolerated by the city’s politicians: The city was losing valuable tax revenue. So, the city’s chief tax collector, New York Mayor De Blasio, stepped up to the plate and led the charge against the army of tax cheaters. He ordered New York police to crack down on this epidemic law breaking.
Tragically, when confronted by police, Eric Garner resisted arrest and then died as a result of the actions of the police officers attempting to subdue him. A grand jury heard all the evidence and decided not to indict the police officers involved, a decision widely criticized by people who have seen only part of the evidence, the video of the arrest.
But isn’t it important to know why the man was being arrested in the first place? Was he robbing anyone? Was he a purse snatcher? A carjacker? A child molester? A rapist? No. He was selling individual cigarettes to willing customers, a transaction that has been criminalized by the government of New York in its unending quest for additional tax revenue.
The police officers involved in the New York City incident were following orders to enforce the law. Whether or not they used “excessive force” in the arrest is a question to be answered in a court of law where all the facts can be considered, not the court of public opinion where speculations and accusations know no bounds. But what outrages many people is the utter lack of proportionality in the tactics of the arrest compared to the character of the law being violated.
There are many laws on the books that would probably be repealed if the police started enforcing them aggressively. What about the laws against jaywalking, littering and truancy? Kids selling lemonade on a hot summer afternoon without a city license?
Resisting arrest is not a smart thing to do in any circumstance, but should anyone die for the crime of stupidity? Shouldn’t politicians like Mayor DiBlasio be held accountable for the consequences of stupid laws aimed not at legitimate public health problems but merely at collecting more money to feed the city bureaucracy?
Media wishing to interview Tom Tancredo, please contact [email protected].
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