A New York City grand jury decided yesterday not to indict the police officer who choked Eric Garner to death back in July. However, Ramsey Orta, who was present and actually filmed Garner being choked, received a grand jury indictment shortly after the incident, reported The Huffington Post.
Weeks after the July 17 incident where Eric Garner was choked to death by an NYPD officer, Orta was indicted by a grand jury on criminal weapons charges: one felony count of third-degree criminal weapon possession and criminal firearm possession. According to the HuffPo, Orta “testified that the charges were falsely mounted by police in retaliation for his role in documenting Garner’s death, but the grand jury rejected his contention.”
However, what’s odd about this indictment is that Orta’s wife was also arrested for an alleged assault incident less than a week after Ramsey’s arrest.
Did NYPD officers retaliate against Orta and his wife because he exposed the world to a clear picture of the brutality with which the department has been associated? It’s really tough to tell. Police corruption tends to have a really good way of covering for itself. And there’s also the Blue Code of Silence, the unwritten rule mandating that cops protect each other.
The chokehold used on Garner was banned by the New York police department back in 1993, but was used in 2014. And the result was the death of an unthreatening, unarmed man. An officer used excessive force and got away with it. Just another day in American law enforcement.
