Ramsey Orta was hounded, framed, beaten and jailed by cops who also beat his disabled mother — and he’s not the only citizen journalist who faced reprisals for recording the NYPD’s public execution of Eric Garner.
In addition to lengthy stays on Riker’s resulting from trumped-up gun charges and pre-dawn raids on his family home, Ramsey Orta has been smeared by anonymous “police sources” in the press who invented a rapsheet that does not accord with the reality of his criminal record. He won the World Press Award for recording the now-notorious video of Eric Gartner being murdered by NYPD officers nine months ago.
He lives in fear for his life.
On August 2, 2014, one day after the medical examiner ruled Garner’s death a homicide, the cops arrested Orta for illegally possessing a handgun. According to the charge, police saw him place a gun in the waistband of a 17-year-old girl—who according to both his and her families, he barely knew.
Orta’s supporters saw this as an act of retaliation on the NYPD’s part. “Even the dumbest criminal would know not to be doing something like that outside. So the whole story doesn’t fit at all,” Ortiz told the Staten Island Advance.
“We need to move to the moon so we can be safe,” she added.
Orta’s family say he’s never owned a gun, and he pled not guilty to the charge. He was released on $75,000 bond and is awaiting trial.
Nine Months After He Filmed Eric Garner’s Killing, the Cops Are Trying to Put Ramsey Orta Behind Bars [Molly Crabapple/Vice]