Ramsey Orta's Journey And The Future of Copwatch
Less than two miles from City Hall and NYPD headquarters, Ramsey Orta pieces his life back together. Orta has been arrested three times since his video of a Staten Island police officer choking, and ultimately killing, Eric Garner went viral. The recording jumpstarted a police brutality movement in New York not seen since the shooting of Sean Bell or perhaps Amadou Diallo.
Orta, 24, was hanging out with Garner and a few other people from the Tompkinsville neighborhood on July 17th 2014 when plainclothes cops from the local 120th precinct sprang up and picked out Garner to arrest. Garner, a 43-year old father, had just broken up a fight between two men, according to Orta and other witnesses. The cops said Garner was selling illegal, untaxed cigarettes. They tried to arrest him, choking and piling up on him as they took him to the ground.
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Orta, 24, was hanging out with Garner and a few other people from the Tompkinsville neighborhood on July 17th 2014 when plainclothes cops from the local 120th precinct sprang up and picked out Garner to arrest. Garner, a 43-year old father, had just broken up a fight between two men, according to Orta and other witnesses. The cops said Garner was selling illegal, untaxed cigarettes. They tried to arrest him, choking and piling up on him as they took him to the ground.
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