This is absolutely insane! This guy was upset, sure, but to put a guy in a Choke Hold for long enough to kill them? Seems pretty excessive to us. Worst part is they arrested him after he had broken up a fight between two other guys. Think they made a few too many assumptions here…

A 400-pound asthmatic Staten Island dad died Thursday after a cop put him in a chokehold and other officers appeared to slam his head against the sidewalk, video of the incident shows.

“I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” Eric Garner, 43, repeatedly screamed after at least five NYPD officers took him down in front of a Tompkinsville beauty supply store when he balked at being handcuffed.

Within moments Garner, a married father of six children with two grandchildren, stopped struggling and appeared to be unconscious as police called paramedics to the scene. An angry crowd gathered, some recording with smartphones.

While the police claim the man had several previous run-ins with the law for selling untaxed cigarettes and merely suffered a cardiac arrest at the exact moment they took him down, it seems pretty clear the police were a little over eager here.

What do you think?

Read more from Eric’s family and his grieving widow at CBS News and Daily News.