Remember Daryl Gates?

I was just now reading this story:

"NJ Robber Dies After Trying to Steal Phone from Former HS Wrestler."

A Newark man died after a tussle with a former high school wrestler he tried to rob early Saturday, NBC New York has learned.

Law-enforcement sources told NBC New York that 30-year-old Gian Davis approached two men near Bloomfield Avenue at about 1:15 a.m. and asked for change.

When the men said "no," he then asked to borrow a cell phone, grabbed it and tried to run off with it, sources said.

One of the men lunged to get the phone back and Davis put him in a headlock, according to sources. Then, law-enforcement sources say the other man, a former high school wrestler, pulled Davis off his friend and put the would-be robber in a headlock.

It was strong enough that Davis apparently choked to death, sources familiar with the investigation said.


That the robbery suspect was black made me recall former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates, who, after several incidents of black crime suspects dying from LAPD choke holds, speculated in a press briefing that perhaps the veins and arteries of black people didn't open back up as in "normal" people. It caused the usual outrage among the usual people, and Gates had to issue the usual apology. Police novelist Joseph Wambaugh picked up the incident and mentioned it in one of his novels.