NEW YORK─ On Monday, June 8, it was confirmed that Ramsey Orta, 28, has been released from the Queensboro Correctional Facility. The Department of Corrections has been allowing early-releases to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Orta’s official sentence will end on July 11, but he will be under court supervision until January 2022.
Orta is known as the man who filmed the death of his friend, Eric Garner, in July of 2014. Orta recorded the confrontation between NYPD officers and Eric Garner, who was accused of selling loose cigarettes. An officer, Daniel Pantaleo, put an arm around Garner’s neck and pulled him down. While in the chokehold, Garner died, his last words were “I can’t breathe.” Pantaleo was fired in August of 2019 without pension, Attorney General William Barr did not press federal charges against him.
Since this incident, Orta has been arrested on multiple occasions. He was sentenced to four years in prison in 2016 on two counts. The first was drug charges of selling heroin, marijuana, crack, and other narcotics to an undercover officer nine times. The second was the possession of a weapon, a .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol he tried to hide in the waistband of a 17-year-old girl.
Orta has alleged that he has been arrested and singled-out as retaliation for exposing Garner’s death. He filed a lawsuit in 2016 when he was arrested for disorderly conduct and blocking traffic at an anti-police brutality protest. He also filed a $10 million lawsuit for “false and/or trumped-up charges” against him.
“Sometimes I regret just not minding my business… Because it just put me in a messed-up predicament,” said Orta to TIME Magazine.
A GoFundMe, “The Ramsey Orta Welcome Home Fund”, has raised over $300,000 as financial security for Orta and his family.
