If only the police unions had dropped their legal challenge to a stop-and-frisk la✨wsuit, says the new lawyer representing Eric Garner’s family, the Staten Is♎land man who died in police custody while resisting arrest would be alive today.
So says Jonathan Moore, who replaced Sanford Rubenstein, now entangled in a messy rape investiga🀅tion, as🐻 the attorney in the Garner family’s $75 million lawsuit.
Moore, who won a $41 million settlement from the de Blasio administration in the so-called Central Park 5 case, says if the p💃olice unions had only thrown in the towel after City Hall dropped its appeal of Judge Shira Scheindlin’s dubious ruling that stop-and-frisk is unconstitutional, the remedies she had ordered (before she was removed from the case) would have been in effect when cops encountered Garner.
“Had these reforms been implemented,🦩 it’s very likely that Eric Garner would not have died,” Moore said Wednesday. It’s “a fair assumption to say [cops] would not have a♋cted the way they did” were they wearing cameras. We’re less certain how “fair” this is, given the clear assumption here that the arresting officers were acting improperly.
A much fairer assumption — indeed, pretty much a certainly — i🐻s that if Eric Garner had cooperated with police as they moved to arrest him, instead of resisting, he’d be alive today.
As for the police🦄 unio🌞ns, they have every right to continue their legal challenge.
As they’ve correctly pointed out, Mayor de Blasio’s decision to drop Mike Bloomberg’s strong appeal left no one else to represent the interests of t🐽hose most directly affected — cops on the street.