Forget about any so-called Hip Hop Nation’s version of the No Snitching campaign you’ve ever heard – the NYPD’s version works so lovely where the only successful prosecution from Eric Garner’s asphyxiation death at the hands of the NYPD 269 days ago has been Ramsey Orta, the citizen who digitally snitched on the police when he captured the killing from his camera phone.
As Democracy Now reports, Orta’s status as a police magnet magically boosted to record numbers in the months following his off-the-cuff street documentary of Garner’s death: multiple instances of the famed stop-and-frisk tactic where Orta’s phone was taken away from him; middle of the night drive-by visits from presumably squad cars where spotlights were aimed into the windiws of his home; the arrest of Orta’s family members plus two arrests directly involving Orta, who was recently released from Rikers Island on bail.
I don’t know Ramsey Orta so I can’t say that he has been a hero or do-gooder all his life, but that sort of debate shouldn’t matter. I can say that Orta heroically did the right thing on July 17th, 2014, and his payment should be public support and gratitude, instead of a reminder that no citizen with a camera should break the NYPD’s unwritten No Snitching law…
song currently stuck in my head: “nothing to do but today” – isley brothers
mentalunrest.com 