2 Years Since White NYPD Cops Murdered Eric Garner — Only Person Punished is the Latino Man Who Filmed It. From [HERE] Two years have now elapsed since New York City Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo along with several other white cops who pounced, smothered and choked Eric Garner to death for the apparently egregious crime of being a Black man - but the only one facing any punishment for what many believe to be a cold-blooded murder is the man who filmed it.
“I can’t breathe,” Garner pleaded eleven times — caught on film by Ramsey Orta — though the white cops refused to release his grip on the Black man’s neck. Garner’s plea for his life became the rallying call of Black Lives Matter and police brutality activists across the nation and around the world — though the inhumanity of having to beg for one’s life after committing a nonviolent, victimless crime remains sadly all-too-common.
Defying all reason, Pantaleo remains on the force — having faced no penalty for killing a nonviolent man who ccommitted a crime under only the strictest legal definition of the term. And Orta, who filmed the gang of white cops has just accepted a plea deal for four years on unrelated charges.
Orta claims he’s been constantly harassed by the cops and repeatedly arrested since that day — almost certainly retaliation for exposing the brutal incident to the world. [their message is if you try to help Black people you run the risk of losing your liberty, livelihood or getting injured or killed.]
Orta, who was a witness at the grand jury, also revealed the fact that the entire grand jury in the Garner case was all-white. Yes, an all white jury in NYC, the Blackest city in the country. [NYC is also the mecca for democrats and liberals. What are these white folks doing for you?] A fact that the white mainstream media ommitted from history.
The white jurors were presented with 28 eyewitnesses and had every camera angle - jurors saw his Youtube video, NYPD video, store surveillance video and City street camera video. Their mind prevented them from seeing reality.
After white NYC prosecutors decided not to prosecute any of the white cops who killed Garner, Orta told the NY Daily News the grand jury was rigged. He said, “I feel like it wasn't fair at all,” he said. “It wasn't fair from the start.” (see video above)
“When I went to the grand jury to speak on my behalf, nobody in the grand jury was even paying attention to what I had to say,” Orta said. “People were on their phones, people were talking. I feel like they didn't give (Garner) a fair grand jury."
“People was on their phones, people were having side conversations, like it was just a regular day to them,” he said of the jurors. Orta, 22, said his appearance before the panel started two hours late because some of the jurors had not shown up.
A man he described as a prosecutor “wasn’t even asking no questions about the police officer, he was asking all the questions towards Eric,” Orta said. “What was Eric doing there? Why was Eric there?”
“Nothing pertaining to the cop choking him,” he said.
Only a few jurors asked any questions.
“Maybe three, that’s all,” he said. “The rest of them, they weren't even worried about nothing.”
Those that did pose questions were also more focused on Garner than Pantaleo, he said.
“One grand juror asked me, ‘If you knew he was selling cigarettes why didn't you tell him the cops was there?’” he said.
Another grand juror asked Orta if he had ever been arrested.
“I said, ‘Miss, what does my criminal history have to do with Eric?’” he said. “I said we shouldn't be sitting here talking about me, we should be talking about Eric now. And we shouldn't even be talking about Eric, we should be talking about the cop.”
But the question on the minds of prosecutors and the jurors, Orta said, was “Why was Eric standing there?”
“The whole thing was just about Eric — why was he selling cigarettes, did you know he was selling cigarettes? It was bulls--t,” he said.
Orta said this got him upset and when he complained he was told — likely by a prosecutor — “to watch how I talk.”
“I said, ‘First of all, you ain't gonna tell me how to talk,’” he said. “These are my feelings and I feel like there should be no sugar coating.”
Orta said prosecutors “brushed it off.”
“They actually cut my time short,” Orta said. “My lawyer told me I was supposed to be in there for at least a half an hour and I only stayed maybe 10 minutes.” [MORE]
A federal probe hasn’t made any headway, either, reportedly due to infighting between the New York and Washington segments of the Justice Department.
“I feel like they’re dragging their feet,” lamented Garner’s widow, Esaw, reported the New York Daily News. “The evidence is there. Either you’re going to prosecute or you’re not. They say, ‘We don’t want to leave any stones unturned.’ How many stones are there after two years?”
Last July, Garner’s family received a $5.9 million settlement with New York City, courtesy of the taxpayers — marking another aspect of how police brutalize citizens with virtual impunity as they aren’t required to carry liability insurance even for the gravest of wrongdoings.
Erica Garner, the victim’s daughter, has become a tireless advocate against violent policing, though as she explained in a recent interview, “it’s like we keep having a conversation I exhausted for two years. And, you know, how much talking do we need to have?”
While Orta has effectively been censored after the fact by facing a four-year stint behind bars, Erica also faced censorship by omission recently.
After ABC News promised her a chance to question President Obama at a town hall event on Thursday, the outlet simply didn’t follow through.
“I was railroaded!” she could be heard yelling, according to the pool report from the event. “I was railroaded by ABC on the two-year anniversary of my father’s death!”
“They are liars,” she was overheard on the tape, according to CNN. “They got us all the way down here.”
Though Garner met with Obama briefly following the event, it hardly quelled her ire toward ABC.
“This town hall that presidential town hall #abc arranged is a farce. It was nothing short of full exploitation of Black pain and grief,” she tweeted. “They lied to me and my family to get us to travel to DC to participate. Taking time away from things I had planned to remember my father.”
“I’m feeling really, really pessimistic about the outcome” of the DOJ investigation, Esaw said. “Now they’re taking on other cases and it’s like Eric’s case gets pushed under the rug, and they’re hoping that we go away and forget about it. But that’s not going to happen.” [MORE]