Ramsey Orta, who famously recorded the police chokehold killing of Eric Garner in 2014, is back in legal hot water, accused of violating his supervised release in a gun case by assaulting two men in a Brooklyn smoke shop last July.
Orta, 34, has been arrested for drug dealing and gun possession since recording the video that helped spark the Black Lives Matter movement. In 2024 a federal judge in Brooklyn sentenced him to 18 months in prison and three years of supervised release for gun possession.
Just a few months into his release, though, he and another man beat up two workers at the Vapor & Smoke Shop on Havemeyer St. in Williamsburg — after they asked Orta to leave the store because he was drunk, a law enforcement source said.
Orta also slashed the face and shoulder of one of the victims during the July 29 attack, according to a criminal complaint.
He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault in state court and got five months jail time, and now the bill is due for violating his federal probation.
“It’s clear that he took responsibility for that conduct,” his lawyer, Karume James of the Federal Defenders, argued in Brooklyn Federal Court Tuesday.
Even so, Magistrate Judge Seth Eichenholtz ordered Orta held without bail until his next court date, citing his “history of violence.”
Orta is scheduled to appear on March 9 before Judge Ann Donnelly, who sentenced him in the federal gun case.
On July 17, 2014, Orta took video of then-NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo putting Garner in a fatal chokehold and pulling him to the ground while arresting him for selling loose cigarettes on Staten Island. Garner, 43, said, “I can’t breathe!” at least 11 times in his dying moments.
Eric Garner
“Mr. Orta has repeatedly stated that he does not regret filming and publishing the death of his friend, Eric Garner. But he does regret attaching his name to the video, rather than remaining anonymous,” his lawyer in 2024, Deirdre von Dornum, wrote in a letter asking for leniency. “Mr. Orta has also been the subject of intense scrutiny and harassment by law enforcement ever since the Eric Garner video was published in the Daily News and went viral.”
Orta has been arrested several times since filming the video. He pleaded guilty in 2016 to weapon possession and drug sale charges on Staten Island and served four years in prison before his parole in June 2020.
He was arrested just a few months after that, when police pulled over his BMW in Williamsburg and found loose pot on his lap and a loaded gun in his waistband. That case became the basis of the federal charges for which he’s on probation.
