George Will: ‘Imbecilic Networks of Laws’ Become ‘Own Cause of Disorder’

Columnist George Will argued that the death of Eric Garner was the consequence of “imbecilic networks of laws” making legitimate law enforcement tactics “becom[ing] manic,” and “its own sense of disorder, own cause of disorder” on Thursday’s broadcast of “Special Report” on the Fox News Channel.

Regarding the specific charges, Will said “if a chokehold which has been banned for 21 years by the New York Police Department was used, that would seem to constitute recklessly causing a death. Now, it’s not clear it was a chokehold, they say ‘well, what was used was a takedown.’ But it was after that that something that looks like a chokehold was used on this 42-year-old man, and in fact, when the Police Benevolent Association [spokesman] spoke earlier on our show on the tape, he said ‘it was not a choke hold that caused his death.’ Now that was a sort of veiled reference to the other health problems that the deceased had.” 

Will continued, “there’s another thing that ought to be said about this. This is the intersection, this whole episode of something very good with something very bad. The very good thing is broken windows policing that says if you don’t repair broken windows, if you don’t stop the people who jump turnstiles, you have a general sense of disorder and it spirals out of control. That’s fine. But, then when you add to that imbecilic networks of laws, such as a law forbidding people to sell loose cigarettes, then you get broken windows becom[ing] manic. And it becomes its own sense of disorder, own cause of disorder.”

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