Jeff Goldstein is a Traditional Wrestling coach and is trained in self-defense techniques:
Bottom line: There was no intent to kill Garner, or at least no compelling evidence of such. Garner’s repetition that he couldn’t breathe was based on his positioning and prior health problems, and made worse by the forearm restraint and the application of weight on Garner to keep him subdued. “Choke holds” are mostly misidentified: choke holds are aimed at cutting off air intake and generally amount to a direct attack on the trachea. My own training has me using two fingers to grab around and compress the wind pipe, should I wish to “choke” someone. Strangles, on the other hand, cut of blood to the carotids. And during a well-executed strangle hold (like, eg., a rear naked “choke”), the ability to speak is greatly minimized and often impossible. This is why we see tap outs in MMA: they substituted non-verbal surrender for verbal surrender, the latter having become difficult or outright impossible.
Were I applying a loose strangle hold — a come along, as we call it, to command compliance without doing serious damage — and I heard “I can’t breathe,” I’d know that I was applying the hold loosely and without fear of cutting off blood to the carotids. This is still an effective way to subdue a much larger man — even without causing him to lose consciousness.
This whole ‘Choke-Hold!’ meme is misleading. Just another Leftist Lie done in the service of the Revolution.
Fight it.
OUTLAW.
