[contextly_auto_sidebar id=”ky7IJQKESC8VPOULpEzWTL54T96fLkFg”] Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky in an interview today said that the police officer who was involved in the choking death of Eric Garner should resign.
Paul’s remarks were at a Mississippi Republican fundraiser and came while discussing how Garner was killed due to the laws against selling untaxed cigarettes. Paul was blunt in his assessment of the officer who choked Garner. “You probably shouldn’t have the power to be a policeman anymore, at the very least,” he said.
Paul’s comments echo his earlier statements on Fox News when he said he was “horrified” by the video of Garner’s death. “I don’t think you can have an officer that makes this bad of a decision work as a policeman,” Paul said. “And I know that sounds sad, but Eric Garner died, and he didn’t need to die.”
Paul’s expanded remarks on the topic:
“Some on the left have criticized me for saying that the law and politicians are partly responsible, but I believe that … You’ve taken cigarettes and put a $5.85 tax on cigarettes. Over half the price of cigarettes in New York City is taxes, so you’ve criminalized behavior that really the police shouldn’t be involved with to begin with … I’m not even sure that Garner had any individual cigarettes on him. Now he had probably been doing that … but he didn’t deserve to die for that … While the grand jury has made its decision, whether or not a policeman who accidentally kills someone while stopping them from distributing cigarettes, that’s probably a lack of discretion and you probably shouldn’t have the power to be a policeman any more, at the very least.”
At the luncheon, state GOP Chairman Joe Nosef said: “(Paul) represents something very important to us. At the same time being able to stand on principle and expand the party … He’s been a unifying figure and at the same time been a leader in bringing us back to our core beliefs.”
Paul also addressed the issue of the War on Drugs, saying: “The war on drugs, I think, has gone a little overboard,” Paul said. “I think drugs are a scourge and are bad for our young people, and I also think that putting a young person in jail for a decade is a mistake. I think we need to treat it more as a health problem than we do need to treat is as a long-term incarceration problem … We have overcriminalized and put people in jail for 50 or 60 years sometimes for possession. And people who have been caught up in this have been poorer people, African Americans, Hispanics disproportionately, so the law is at fault.”
Paul’s statements come at a time of deep racial tension in the United States. In remarks, President Obama said that racism is “deeply rooted” in American society. TLR’s Freedom Report podcast yesterday dove into what that means.
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