Again: Are You Kidding Me?

A grand jury chose not to indict a New York policeman for using an illegal choke hold on a black man, which killed said black man, while trying to arrest him for a petty crime on Staten Island? 

Look, I understand the Ferguson case.  I get it.  There was no recorded document of the altercation between Michael Brown and Darren Wilson, and witness testimonies were contradictory.  But Eric Garner's death at the hands of Officer Daniel Panteleo was there for all to see - it was on video!  And six policemen ganged up on him over him selling untaxed cigarettes?  Well, that's a threat to the domestic tranquility if I ever heard one!  

Garner, who was overweight and asthmatic, yelled out, "I can't breathe!" while he was being suffocated, and it should have been obvious right then and there that the police were using excessive force.  (Choke holds were banned by the New York Police Department in 1993; police claim the method used on Garner was learned at the police academy, and not defined as a choke hold.  Stupefyingly incredible!) Republicans, of course, have been dismissive of the non-indictment, with Long Island congressman Peter King even going so fat as to saying that, because Garner was obese, of course he couldn't survive the hold procedure.  One more case of a politician blaming the victim.

I can't breathe because I'm too busy wanting to throw up.  I've never been more depressed about the state of the land of my birth than today . . . though I'll likely be more depressed tomorrow.