No Bill in New York.

Regardless of the victim's animosity toward the police (because of continued harassment) or the police's obvious animosity toward him bred of arrogance and belief of special  privilege, the root cause of this crime lies with governmental and political arrogance, and their refusal to consider the existence of unintended consequences.

In the process of building the progressive utopian disaster that is New York State and New York City they left has raised and raised and raised again the so-called sin taxes, particularly those on cigarettes.  The reaction has been that some 60% of cigarettes are bootlegged in from other states.  Rather than reducing the incentive for smuggling by lowering taxes, and thus potentially increasing derived revenues, the government chooses to increase enforcement by turning the local beat cop into a revenuer.

However absurdly high the taxes may be on a pack of cigarettes may be, criminalizing the non-commercial sale of single cigarettes is a bureaucratic obscenity.  But then I suppose if Mr. Garner had been selling single joints on the corner that would be considered far more politically correct and the cops would have turned a blind eye.

At the close of the Battle of Yorktown Cornwallis's band played a little number titled "The World Turned Upside Down."  Perhaps we should come full circle and it should become an anthem for the coming insurrection.