Ramsey Orta (pictured center), the man who filmed a police officer choking Eric Garner, made his latest court appearance on gun possession charges Friday in Staten Island.
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Undercover officers arrested Orta in Staten Island on August 2nd. They allege he slipped a .25 caliber handgun in to a teenager’s waistband outside a local hotel, but Orta has maintained the arrest was revenge for filming the Garner incident.
Orta exited the courtroom a mere 30 minutes later, with his wife, daughter, and other family members in tow. He has been ordered to return again on October 31st. While Orta refused to speak with media and left the area soon after, supporters and friends sounded off on his case.
“I’m here to support my homie,” said Remarkable, a friend to Ramsey. “That’s all I’m here for.” When asked what he thought of the charges, he bluntly said,”I think it’s some bulls**t.”
For Pal-Africa of the Philidelphia-based Black liberation Move organization, she knew she had to do something. “I saw the injustice on the TV, and when attorney Alton Maddox (pictured in first image below) gave the call, I answered,” Pal said. “I didn’t answer because I was coming for justice; we come to bring justice.”
“I’m outraged at the fact that they put him in jail and the cop that killed the brother is still walking the streets.”
Maddox, who acted as Orta’s interim guardian ad litem while he was incarcerated and set up his bail fund, said that Ramsey’s charges are because of discrepancies in how the legal system defines weapons.
“He is being prosecuted on an unconstitutional stature,” Maddox, a legendary civil rights attorney, said. “And the reason why he’s being prosecuted on an unconstitutional stature is because it does not distinguish between a play toy and a real gun.”
“The gun that they found him with was unloaded. I used to play ‘Cowboys and Indians’ with those type of guns. Being in possession of an unloaded gun incapable of killing anybody is not a crime.” Maddox is representing Orta during the trial after the young man requested his counsel.
Staten Island native Gary (pictured in image below Maddox) framed the fight to free Orta as one for the youth. “I’m an O.G. I’m almost 60. See, Ramsey is 22,” Gary said. “The young people in Ferguson — from what I heard — it was the young people in Ferguson who kicked it off. So the younger generation [is] stepping forward. We need the young blood to step up.”
Orta is charged with single felony counts of third-degree criminal weapons possession and criminal firearm possession. In addition, his wife has a court date Monday stemming from a physical altercation with another female that occurred last month.
See more pictures below:
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