What do you see as you examine this picture?

I’ll tell you what I see. I see a man being throttled by someone else, with a second person’s hand at the back of his neck. The picture was taken apparently as the young man, Christopher Johnson, was being booked into the Harris County, Texas, jail on a charge of drunken driving.

It happened on July 29, 2015.

Guess what. Johnson is suing the Harris County Sheriff’s Office for violating his civil rights by choking him. Why were they treating him like that? Johnson’s suit says it was because he was smiling during the mug shot photo session in the county jail.

I saw this story and started laughing. Out loud. OK, I know it’s not funny. But still …

http://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-man-choked-smiling-mugshot/story?id=

I honestly don’t know what is the more ridiculous element of the story: that he was smiling in the first place after being thrown into the slammer or that corrections officers allegedly thought it was OK to choke the fellow.

According to ABC News: “While posing for what he says were approximately 10 photographs, Johnson claims he was choked by the two Harris County employees for approximately 30 seconds, the lawsuit states. ‘This is how I always take my pictures,’ Johnson said to the booking officer, according to the lawsuit.”

Always? Even when you’re being arrested for driving a motor vehicle while drunk?

I won’t go there. Maybe he thought it was funny. Then again, some of us act strangely when we’re under the influence of intoxicants.

As for the merits of the complaint, I won’t pass judgment on that, either. There might have been another reason why the employees felt the need to put their hands on the guy’s throat. He might have been resisting them, which, quite naturally, the lawsuit won’t ever reveal.

If what Johnson’s suit alleges is true, then I’ll just say: “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”