work every day with the men and women in the police force. >> susan, we were talking about the anthony baez case that you represented. so many similarities between that case and eric garner's. i want to play a part of the "today" show from 1995 when his family was interviewed. let's watch this. >> baez was playing touch football with his brothers late one night when the football hit a police car. officer lavodi tried to break up the game, and it ended up in a struggle with baez. >> demonstrate what you saw the officer do to your brother? >> what i saw him do on the opposite side over there because i was on the sidewalk. the officer came around behind him and brought him back look this, taking him down. >> it's almost eerie, 18 years later we're seeing this same kind of thing. what did you do to break through this blue wall and to get a federal indictment? >> well, immediately after the non -- the acquittal of officer lavodi, and remember the judge in that case was judge judy's husband, judge sheinlin. had an indictment. it went to trial. a nonjury trial. but judge sheinlin said from the ben

in the anthony baez case, the officer was found not guilty at trial.er that acquittal, the officer was then charged in federal court by federal prosecutors. and in the federal case, the officer was convicted and sentenced to seven years behind bars. now, in the eric garner case, nobody knows if federal charges will ultimately be brought against the officer in the eric garner case. but the federal prosecutor with jurisdiction for where this happened remarkably is this prosecutor. loretta lynch who has just been nominated by president obama to become the next attorney general of the united states. how does that factor into this decision? joining us, mr. butler, thank you for being with us. now that we've learned that they have launch ad formal investigation, what are they looking for? what do they need to find to make a decision to bring federal charges? >> the standard is whether the police officer willfully and purposefully violated mr. garner's rights under collar of state law. that's fangsy legal language. what it usually means is that the police had

anthony baez died after a police chokehold in 1994. here's part of a "today" show profile on that story from 1995. that ran on the "today" show. >> as tony and his brothers tossed the ball, two police cars pulled up with four officers inside. when the ball hit one of the cars, the baez brothers say they apologized, moved up the street and continued to play. >> they waved it off as to say, they accept our apology. >> the trouble began when the ball bounced off a police car again. at that point, the officer got out and confronted him. >> he went over to my you thing brother and said you're under arrest. anthony was telling him, he knows his rights. he said, i know what you're doing is wrong. and the officer, he grabbed tony -- >> henry, demonstrate for me what you saw the officer do to your brother. what i saw him do on the opposite side, i was on the sidewalk. i saw the officer come around and bring him back like this, taking him down. >> tony eventually was taken to the hospital. the city's medical examiner ruled his death a homicide,

a young man named anthony baez. he was killed in the bronx by a police officer who choked him after a football he was playing with bounced off the officer's patrol car. in that case, a grand jury did decide that the officer should be put on trial for killing anthony baez by choking him to death. but at trial that officer was acquitted. then that same officer was brought up on charges again in federal court. and in federal court the officer was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison. that's the last time a new york police officer was charged for choking someone. in the garner case, the police officer who put eric garner in a choke hold before he died is till on the police force. while the grand jury was investigating this case he was on desk duty and not carrying his gun. it's still to be seen if they'll keep him on the force or if he'll be disciplined in any way now that we know that local charges will be brought against that officer. it's unclear whether or not federal charges might be brought in this cas

. >> this is my son anthony baez. he was murderby officer lebote.nd this was nicholas takewell junior who was killed playing in the stairwell of the projects. today, there's no justice. we're talking about 20 years back. >> new york killed by police in cold blood. dating back 20 years you're telling me. >> yes. this man he had six children and he was in a restaurant cooking and then he heard a noise and he came out with a knife in his hand and they shot him. >> it's multiracial, tell me iris what happened to your sob. >> my son was playing in the front yard with a football. the football touched the patrol car. >> how old was your son? >> he was 29. it was a football, they setback so they wouldn't hit the patrol car. at the time that lavote got out and put my son in a choke hold he was being monitored by his sergeant. that lavote was not supposed to have any contact with the community. >> really, really? >> he had 15 prior complaints he abused the community yet he was allowed to continue. >> so there was plenty of information on the record about this

. >> well, i mean, here's the difficulty: people have known since anthony baez, certainly if not before then, the plain logical deduction that if you cut off someone's air supply it tends to culminate in a fatality, or at least this is a possibility. so instead of this being a simple mistake, there were four or five officers atop mr. garner, and, so, what exactly would qualify? i was wondering if we could be clear about the parameters, what exactly is law enforcement not allowed to do? >> ifill: so does the training speak to that. >> i'm not sure the training does. if people were retrained and this maneuver was already banned but they don't follow the training and there's no consequences for failure to follow the training we've accomplished nothing. >> ifill: let me ask candace mccoy to weigh in on that. >> yes. let's remember that there was a medical examiner report here, and the medical examiner of the city of new york took very careful note of what had happened. there are two parts of that report and they seem to be forgetting the second part. the first was that there had been pressu

we've seen it in the case of anthony baez about 20 years ago as well where the department of justicentervene. find out his civil rights have been violated and that officer went to jail. there have been opportunities where the department of justice has intervened. that has resulted in justice for the victims. and i really, my heart goes out to the family. the garner family is one that we all suffer. and that family does not have him coming home at night. so for something that as you've been showing in the video over and over was just incredible to see happen before our eyes. >> i'm totally with you. thank you, madam speaker and michael steel. it's a tricky matter, but i think you were very clear. >>> when we come back, much more on the garner case and what law enforcement can be doing differently. this is "hardball," the place for politics. we needed 30 new hires for our call center. i'm spending too much time hiring and not enough time in my kitchen. need to hire fast? go to ziprecruiter.com and post your job to over 30 of the web's leading job boards with a single click; then simply

. >> remember the anthony baez case. he was killed by a chokehold in the bronx. the federal government stepped in. >> in new york. >> in new york and at least brought an indictment for assault. that's the most basic charge. simple assault. even a misdemeanor assault. give us something here. s in a whole range of charges they could have considered. the fact that they gave us nothing. >> outrageous. >> let me ask you, as you sit here and you stood last wednesday night, a week ago tonight you stood on the stage at nash action network with the family of michael brown jr. and this young lady who is the mother with the young man who was killed in the stairwell. kimberly in brooklyn. we're doing funeral friday night. he's not even buried yet. as you stand here, forget me. people know i'm a public figure. forget him. he's a lawyer. as a human being, tell people what it means to you to lose a husband to law enforcement and to watch that. and beyond the politics, what this means. i think people don't get the human side of this. >> it is so lonely. so sad. and then every da

in 1994, anthony baez was killed when a police officer employed a choke hold following an altercation after a induststray football hit a police car. the medical examiner concluded that his asthma was a contributing factor. the officer was later indicted and charged. two years later he was acquitted by a bronx judge. in a separate federal trial, he was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison after being found guilty of violation of civil rights. we do not have access to all the evidence because those proceedings are secret. but we have all seen the video, and a whole lot of people across the political spectrum are finding it difficult to understand how the police officer was not indicted. you have been litigating with police in new york for decades, 50 years combined between the two. how surprised were you by today's decision? >> as a lawyer, i was shocked. as a human being i was saddened. as a black human being, i'm angry about it. >> i wasn't shocked. the process is secret, it's not adversarial. we should abolish the grand juries when we have these kinds of cases and go to an open adversa

it was the anthony baez case, officer cleared by a state judge, the feds came in on civil rights. they will receive a large settlement, financial settlement from the city of new york, there's no doubt about that. the trend is, the city has been settling these cases rapidly, but they want some type of justice from the criminal justice system. >> just the fact that you had that laundry list of cases, all of them unarmed black men, in some cases unarmed black children have been killed by police. what does that say that new york city is dealing with the same problem acknowledge very diverse community that they're dealing with in ferguson, missouri. >> i wish i had the million dollar answer to this question to stop all of this. it's troubling as a journalist. thirty years i've been covering these cases and it's almost always the same outcome. there's something that hasn't been talked about a lot. we are just excusing and saying the grand jury rules. that is accurate, but you have to look at where this case was held. that's extremely important. stanton island is a community that consist

in 1994, nypd officer was acquitted on state charges in the death of anthony baez who died in an altercation in federal court of vi lating civil rights. in both cases the officers had faced state charges. in the case with pantaleo and wilson, in ferguson, a grand jury opted not to indict or bring a case in the first place. what might happen this time? paul butler, now a professor at georgetown law joins us now. paul, let me give you my reaction. i'm not a legal expert or anything, you are. my reaction as a layman watching the response on wednesday night when the decision came down from the grand jury and that eric holder is out there very quickly -- the fact it's the attorney general of the united states out there on national television making this statement told me compared to ferguson, there's something more specific they are looking at and thinking of doing here. >> the justice department steps in when it perceives there has been a breakdown at the state level, something that rises to the level of a miscarriage of justice. unfortunately there's tragic history back in the '60s and '50s whe

con la familia de eric gardner es esta madre hispana, iris bÁez que encuentra varias similitudes de la forma como un policÍa matÓ a su hijo anthonyia estaba reunida y sus hijos jugaban fÚtbol afuera de su vivienda en una calle de nueva york. el juegola pelota pegÓ contra el patrullero de el policÍa, el policía iracundo se le fue encima, le puso su brazo alrededor del cuello, hasta que lo asfixiÓ homo en el caso de eric gardner de nada valieron las sÚplicas del el padreal policÍa, le advirtiÓ que sufrÍa de asma pero no le importÓ ella dice que jamÁs perdonará al oficial. >> yo no puedo perdonarlo. >> anthony cayÓ inconciente con la cara contra el piso, los policÍas le pusieron las rodillas en la espalda y lo esposaron, estuvo tirado en el pavimento durante 15 minutos, nunca volviÓ a recobrar el sentido como sucediÓ en el caso de gardner. >> si Él sabÍa, que tenía asma como le vas a poner la rodilla en la espalda. >> ella dice que los policÍas lleven cÁmara en su uniforme no harÁ ninguna diferencia, ella cree que sÓlo se necesita una mano para cubrirla. >> si tÚ miras la cÁmara lo Único que deben poner la mano si y con esta tarde u