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Milepost 40.1 on Interstate 287 South, where Kenwin Garcia struggled with police in July 2008. A five-month investigation by NJ Advance Media raises serious questions about the official account of what happened.

(Robert Sciarrino | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

A man with an emotional past walking down a New Jersey highway gets pulled over by a state trooper. After becoming agitated in the patrol car, he kicks out a window.

Angry officers put this man, 25-year-old Kenwin Garcia of Newark, into another patrol car, where he breaks another window. More troopers and local police descend.

An officer walks over to a patrol car to turn off the dashboard camera.

Minutes later, Garcia was lifeless in an ambulance. He didn't have a weapon, was hogtied and outnumbered. All of which raises the question: Would he be alive today if not for police mishandling? And why the apparent cover-up?

The 2008 incident was ruled a homicide, but no officer was ever punished. Even now, six years later, after the Garcia family's civil lawsuit has already been settled, the state Attorney General's Office is still refusing to release the results of its investigation.

It is only because of internal documents leaked to NJ Advance Media's Christopher Baxter, who did his own months-long investigation, that we know anything more about what happened that day, or what authorities deemed the official cause of death.

The medical examiner found it to be "excited delirium," a controversial medical condition that absolves police -- although after reviewing the autopsy report, some experts now argue that Garcia more likely suffocated under restraint.

Several other factors make this case very fishy. First, why did three troopers need to sit on Garcia's back while he was already hogtied?

And why hasn't the officer who turned off the dashboard camera been fired? That's obstruction of justice.

Two troopers also claimed that Garcia smashed his head through the window, when many other officers on the scene said he used his feet -- and the medical examiner found no evidence of such a head injury.

How do authorities explain that?

Then there's the failure of responding Hanover police to record the incident, and the town's claim that its 911 call logging system was not working that day. This is incompetent at best, and maybe malevolent.

It's also strange that the $700,000 settlement included a gag order for Garcia's family. The AG's office now claims that this was at the family's request. What sense does that make?

Gov. Chris Christie or Acting Attorney General John Hoffman should immediately appoint a panel of experts to review this case and recommend reforms. If they don't, the state legislature should hold hearings and subpoena the internal report.

It all points to a need for better police work. We must look at the policies for handling the mentally ill, and why the AG's office won't say whether it's followed through on training it promised in the settlement with Garcia's family. We must beat back a macho State Police culture, in which troopers exert dominance rather than protect public safety. And we must ensure these investigations are handled transparently and fairly in the future.

Among our questions: Do we need an independent authority outside the AG's office to review alleged brutality cases? And should we require autopsies from a medical examiner who isn't under the AG's umbrella, to guard against potential conflicts of interest?

At the very least, the public deserves to know when an arrest-related death is under investigation, and be fully informed of the result. Wisconsin just passed a law that requires this kind of transparency. New Jersey should do the same.

Rather than walk past this man's grave and express our regrets, we must resolve to do better in the future.

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