Have a run-in with the cops? Do what Ramsey Orta did: Try to get the Rev. Al Sharpton on the phone.
Orta, a convicted felon, is the man who filmed the fatal NYPD encounter with Eric Garner. On Saturday, cops busted him for possession of a stolen gun. So he told his wife to “call Al Sharpton.”
On Sunday, Sharpton used Orta’s arrest to boost his argument that Staten Island DA Dan Donovan must hand the case over to the feds. Donovan, he says, has a conflict because he will be prosecuting Orta while he calls him as a witness in the Garner case.
Then again, this is not really about Eric Garner. It’s about forcing the NYPD into federal receivership.
That’s been the motive behind the many efforts by the City Council, federal Judge Shira Scheindlin and some of the city’s media outlets, who object to the NYPD’s vigorous and effective anti-crime tactics. Now they hope to use Eric Garner’s death to present brutality as systemic within the NYPD.
Among the evidence they cite is that black and Latino people receive a disproportion number of summonses for quality-of-life issues. But maybe that reflects the reality of cops policing neighborhoods once left to fend for themselves. Our guess is that the law-abiding citizens in these neighborhoods don’t like disorderly conduct and public urination any more than do people in the more posh areas of the city.
Here’s the bottom line: If the officer in question broke the law, Donovan ought to indict. But let’s go where the law and the evidence take us — and resist the political pressure from all those groups hoping to use Garner’s tragic death while resisting arrest to handcuff the entire NYPD.