On Wednesday, a Staten Island grand jury decided not to indict New York Police Department officer Daniel Pantaleo for the July 17 killing of Eric Garner, the second no-indictment decision in a major police-involved homicide in just 10 days. On November 24, a grand jury in St. Louis declined to indict Ferguson Police Department officer Darren Wilson for the shooting death of Michael Brown, prompting nationwide protests. Earlier, in September, still another grand jury did not indict police officers for shooting and killing John Crawford III in a suburban Ohio Walmart.
Garner's death was captured on video by a bystander. That video shows Garner protesting that he could not breathe as Pantaleo, one of the officers restraining him, held in a chokehold, a practice that is specifically banned by the NYPD's own policies. In the wake of the decision not to indict Pantaleo, critics are asking whether even plain video evidence is enough to secure wrongful-death charges against a police officer.
Several common factors are at play in recent decisions that have undermined public confidence in the justice system, says John Roman, senior fellow in the Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center. But federal and local governments are not powerless to change the status quo. Below, Roman outlines for us several key steps, from big changes in data collection to overhauling the grand jury process, that while difficult, ought to be front and center in the policy debate at every level going forward.
[For more of this story, written by Kriston Capps, go to http://www.citylab.com/crime/2014/12/how-to-get-serious-about-police-reform/383395/]
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