美国国家公共电台 NPR New Book Argues A Theory In Policing Is To Blame For Eric Garner's Death

 

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Let me take you back to a day in July 2014 when a man named Eric Garner¹ was stopped by two cops on the street in Staten Island.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ERIC GARNER: I'm minding my business, officer. I'm minding my business. Please, just leave me alone. I told you the last time, please, just leave me alone.

KELLY: The New York Daily News posted that bystander video on their website. And we want to warn listeners it is disturbing to listen to. You can hear Garner begging police not to touch him. You see a police officer put him in a chokehold, wrestle² him to the sidewalk and press him down as other officers handcuff him. And then you hear Garner's last words.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

GARNER: I can't breathe. I can't breathe.

KELLY: I can't breathe. Eric Garner was pronounced dead at the hospital later that day. The coroner eventually ruled that the death was a homicide, but no one was ever indicted³ in the case.

Investigative journalist Matt Taibbi writes about Garner in a new book. It's called "I Can't Breathe: A Killing⁴ On Bay Street." And when I spoke⁵ with him earlier, I started by asking Taibbi about Eric Garner and who he was as a person.

MATT TAIBBI: He was a complex, interesting, funny, flawed person, this sort of larger-than-life character who was very different than how he was portrayed⁶ in the press. He had some strange personality quirks⁷. For one thing, he would wear his clothes until they literally⁸ fell off his body because he had a kind of phobia about spending money on himself. All of his money went to his kids. So even though he was actually making money at a pretty good clip, he looked from the outside like a complete mess. That was actually sort of a visual symbol of his devotion to his family.

KELLY: When you say he was a larger-than-life character, that's literal. He was a big guy...

TAIBBI: He was.

KELLY: ...Three hundred and fifty pounds. And you said he was complicated. He had, we should mention, a long arrest record as a drug dealer⁹. By the time of his death, he'd moved on to smuggling¹⁰ cigarettes. He was selling them illegally on the street. Although crucially, as you report, he was not doing anything illegal on the afternoon that he died.

TAIBBI: The evidence suggests that what happened that day is that a more senior police officer, probably a lieutenant¹¹ in the precinct down there in Staten Island, drove by, saw Garner on the street and ordered a couple of detectives to go by and pick him up. But nobody ever saw him actually selling a cigarette. And that's why he's so confused in the moment of arrest. He doesn't know why they're arresting him for the perfectly¹² logical reason that he wasn't doing anything.

KELLY: I mean, what you're writing about here is a bigger story of how the police in New York were trained and instructed to go about policing this certain neighborhood, Staten Island, in New York, that they were being trained not just to enforce the law but to maintain order.

TAIBBI: Right. And this was a major philosophical¹³ shift that occurred in how we go about policing in this country. Up through I would say the late-'70s and early '80s, our attitude towards policing in almost all the major cities was essentially¹⁴ reactive. We had cops who were out there in squad¹⁵ cars, and when crimes happened, they tried to stop them, or they investigated them. But following the '80s and the early '90s after the spread of a theory called the broken windows theory, they wanted to affirmatively establish order everywhere.

And that meant policing little things - not just reacting to crimes after they happen but stopping people from urinating in the streets or jumping turnstiles or drinking in places in public where they shouldn't be or riding bicycles the wrong way down the sidewalk. That became the emphasis of policing as opposed to stopping serious crime.

KELLY: And there's a case to be made that that worked. Crime in New York went down.

TAIBBI: Yes, that's the case that they made and they continue to make although sociologists are very split on this issue. There's a lot of disagreement about this. A lot of people believe that the reasons why crime fell over - all over the country can't be accounted for by these programs because the drops happened equally in cities that adopted these new theories and ones that didn't. So nobody really knows why crime dropped. But that's a possible explanation.

Still, even if that's true, it doesn't justify¹⁶ what actually happened because what these policies actually did is they created this sort of massive interventionist scheme where police in cities like New York were stopping 500,000, 600,000, 700,000 people a year almost entirely¹⁷ in black and Hispanic neighborhoods and very often physically¹⁸ searching them as well. And they made incidents like Garner's statistically¹⁹ far more likely.

KELLY: And worth noting - this was something that was very familiar to Eric Garner. For years, he had been arrested many times on various offenses²⁰ over the years.

TAIBBI: Yeah, Eric Garner unfortunately was a person who had rotten luck throughout his life. He had the terrible misfortune to sort of be the - almost like the Zelig of the modern law enforcement innovations. He was a crack dealer at the time when the government made crack dealers²¹ public enemy No. 1. He went off to prison in New York state when New York state was at the center of the mass incarceration²² movement and building prisons everywhere.

And then when broken windows came along and the emphasis of law enforcement became the small-time criminal, that just happened to be the time in Eric Garner's life when he became a small-time criminal. The police went after him over and over and over again and repeatedly vouchered his money and sent him to jail. And that was part of the background to that - the video that day was just that - his frustration²³ over that repeated targeting.

KELLY: The sad fact is that in the three years since Eric Garner died there have been a lot of cases in this country that have added to tension between police and the people in the communities that they are sworn to serve. What is your takeaway from Eric Garner's case? I mean, what should we remember about his life?

TAIBBI: I think Eric Garner - first of all, his case was explosive. And it was, I think, the ultimate sort of Twitter age case because the video is so graphic²⁴ and so undeniable that he wasn't doing anything wrong. And...

KELLY: Unlike, say, Ferguson, Mo., where we didn't actually have video of what unfolded there.

TAIBBI: Exactly. In all of these incidents up until the age when everybody was carrying cell phones, the police and the authorities always had an excuse. But in this case, you saw the entire incident from start to finish. And everybody could see what happened. There was no denying what happened. And when the officers in this case were still not indicted and there was no serious discipline handed out yet - it still could happen - people saw how the entire justice system worked.

And I think the import of this story is that it shows not just how broken windows policing operates, but how the entire bureaucracy behind the police operates. How it protects police who do wrong things. How these cases are sort of tucked away and hidden so that people forget about them more quickly. And that's what I tried to do in this book, is I tried to lay out not just how these incidents happen in a few terrible seconds, but how they happen over the course of years and decades and repeat over and over and over again.

KELLY: Matt Taibbi. His new book about Eric Garner is "I Can't Breathe: A Killing On Bay Street." Matt, thanks very much.

TAIBBI: Thanks so much.

1 garner   

v.收藏；取得

参考例句：

• He has garnered extensive support for his proposals.他的提议得到了广泛的支持。
• Squirrels garner nuts for the winter.松鼠为过冬储存松果。

2 wrestle   

vi.摔跤，角力；搏斗；全力对付

参考例句：

• He taught his little brother how to wrestle.他教他小弟弟如何摔跤。
• We have to wrestle with difficulties.我们必须同困难作斗争。

3 indicted   

控告，起诉( indict的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The senator was indicted for murder. 那位参议员被控犯谋杀罪。
• He was indicted by a grand jury on two counts of murder. 他被大陪审团以两项谋杀罪名起诉。

4 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

5 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

6 portrayed   

v.画像( portray的过去式和过去分词 )；描述；描绘；描画

参考例句：

• Throughout the trial, he portrayed himself as the victim. 在审讯过程中，他始终把自己说成是受害者。
• The author portrayed his father as a vicious drunkard. 作者把他父亲描绘成一个可恶的酒鬼。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

7 quirks   

n.奇事，巧合( quirk的名词复数 )；怪癖

参考例句：

• One of his quirks is that he refuses to travel by train. 他的怪癖之一是不愿乘火车旅行。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• All men have their own quirks and twists. 人人都有他们自己的怪癖和奇想。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

8 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

9 dealer   

n.商人，贩子

参考例句：

• The dealer spent hours bargaining for the painting.那个商人为购买那幅画花了几个小时讨价还价。
• The dealer reduced the price for cash down.这家商店对付现金的人减价优惠。

10 smuggling   

n.走私

参考例句：

• Some claimed that the docker's union fronted for the smuggling ring.某些人声称码头工人工会是走私集团的掩护所。
• The evidence pointed to the existence of an international smuggling network.证据表明很可能有一个国际走私网络存在。

11 lieutenant   

n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员

参考例句：

• He was promoted to be a lieutenant in the army.他被提升为陆军中尉。
• He prevailed on the lieutenant to send in a short note.他说动那个副官，递上了一张简短的便条进去。

12 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

13 philosophical   

adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的

参考例句：

• The teacher couldn't answer the philosophical problem.老师不能解答这个哲学问题。
• She is very philosophical about her bad luck.她对自己的不幸看得很开。

14 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

15 squad   

n.班，小队，小团体；vt.把…编成班或小组

参考例句：

• The squad leader ordered the men to mark time.班长命令战士们原地踏步。
• A squad is the smallest unit in an army.班是军队的最小构成单位。

16 justify   

vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护

参考例句：

• He tried to justify his absence with lame excuses.他想用站不住脚的借口为自己的缺席辩解。
• Can you justify your rude behavior to me?你能向我证明你的粗野行为是有道理的吗？

17 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

18 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

19 statistically   

ad.根据统计数据来看，从统计学的观点来看

参考例句：

• The sample of building permits is larger and therefore, statistically satisfying. 建筑许可数的样本比较大，所以统计数据更令人满意。
• The results of each test would have to be statistically independent. 每次试验的结果在统计上必须是独立的。

20 offenses   

n.进攻( offense的名词复数 )；（球队的）前锋；进攻方法；攻势

参考例句：

• It's wrong of you to take the child to task for such trifling offenses. 因这类小毛病责备那孩子是你的不对。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Thus, Congress cannot remove an executive official except for impeachable offenses. 因此，除非有可弹劾的行为，否则国会不能罢免行政官员。 来自英汉非文学 - 行政法

21 dealers   

n.商人( dealer的名词复数 )；贩毒者；毒品贩子；发牌者

参考例句：

• There was fast bidding between private collectors and dealers. 私人收藏家和交易商急速竞相喊价。
• The police were corrupt and were operating in collusion with the drug dealers. 警察腐败，与那伙毒品贩子内外勾结。

22 incarceration   

n.监禁，禁闭；钳闭

参考例句：

• He hadn't changed much in his nearly three years of incarceration. 在将近三年的监狱生活中，他变化不大。 来自辞典例句
• Please, please set it free before it bursts from its long incarceration! 请你，请你将这颗心释放出来吧！否则它会因长期的禁闭而爆裂。 来自辞典例句

23 frustration   

n.挫折，失败，失效，落空

参考例句：

• He had to fight back tears of frustration.他不得不强忍住失意的泪水。
• He beat his hands on the steering wheel in frustration.他沮丧地用手打了几下方向盘。

24 graphic   

adj.生动的，形象的，绘画的，文字的，图表的

参考例句：

• The book gave a graphic description of the war.这本书生动地描述了战争的情况。
• Distinguish important text items in lists with graphic icons.用图标来区分重要的文本项。