Anyone wonder why cops kept busting Garner for selling cigarettes? The price of cigarettes in city of NY is the highest in the nation and half the cost is taxes. Since this case is portrayed as a white on black crime, it is ironic that in 2009 President Obama signed into law the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act which raised the federal tax on a pack of cigarettes from $.39 to $1.01. This, of course, was to save lives. And in 2010 or 2011 Senator Parker, a black Democrat raised the NY State tax to $4.35 a pack, again to save lives. In the uber "liberal" city of NY there is another $1.50 per pack tax added, to save lives, and the federal excise tax added to all of the above tops the total tax burden on a pack to $6.80.
The city made it a priority for the police to arrest any illegal sale of untaxed cigarettes. The amount of money involved makes it obvious why.
So, now, a white cop is being branded by the black "community" as a murderer for killing a black man who was selling a commodity which was made a black market (no pun intended) item by "well intended" black politicians as well as other "liberal" politicians. And it was politicians who demanded the cops to crack down on such sales.
Sometimes (actually quite often, even usually) political masterminds create laws for our good which turn out to have unintended consequences. Here is an article in Forbes that talks a bit about it:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphi...ed-cigarettes/