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The man who videotaped the police chokehold death of Eric Garner has been released from prison.
Ramsey Orta was sentenced to four years in 2016 for possession of a weapon as well as drug charges. He was eligible for early release due to the coronavirus pandemic, his sentence is officially over on July 11.
The Staten Island man who filmed Eric Garner’s last breaths was arrested multiple times on drug and weapons charges. According to The New York Daily News, Orta sold drugs in 2016 to an undercover officer multiple times. He was arrested in possession of a .25-caliber handgun.
Many believe that he was the victim of police harassment outside and inside of prison. In 2015, Orta filed a lawsuit alleging that he was poisoned while in Rikers Island. He and 19 other inmates alleged that they were rendered ill after guards tampered with their meatloaf.
At the age of 22, Orta filmed the police chokehold of Eric Garner who was accused of selling loose cigarettes. New York Police officer, Daniel Pantaleo, held Garner around the neck on the ground. The man continuously said, “I can’t breathe,” in a statement that became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement.
The words were again echoed by George Floyd who was killed after being pinned to the ground by Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, for over nine minutes. The similarities in the cases have propelled Orta’s name back into the media spotlight.
Daniel Pantaleo was fired five years later, in 2019, he faced no criminal charges.
Ramsey Orta told Time Magazine that he regretted being involved in the Garner case. He said the public attention was overwhelming, “It just put me in a messed-up predicament,” he told the publication that he became the victim of consistent police harassment.
A GoFundMe campaign to help Orta has nearly met its $200,000 goal.
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Sierra Gates, the owner of The Glam Shop in Atlanta, is known for being supportive of other women entrepreneurs. As a reality star on Love & Hip Hop Atlanta, Gates is committed to using the platform to put black women entrepreneurs in the spotlight and inspire others who have had the odds stacked against them to level up. Now, as a businesswoman, Gates is helping other women leap into entrepreneurship during the COVID-19 pandemic by teaching them her micro-blading beauty techniques, offering access to vendors as they purchase products to sell items online, and a variety of courses.
In a recent interview with Gates, she shared her journey to ownership and why it is important to help others reach their dreams during the pandemic.
For those who don’t know you outside of reality TV, who is Sierra Gates the woman and entrepreneur?
Sierra Gates is a black girl, born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, from the west side of Atlanta who just made the best out of her situation. I had my daughter at 15 and I was told by a white woman that I wasn’t going to be anything. She tried to get me to have an abortion. And I just made the best out of it. I was homeless. All types of odds were against me that I beat. So, that’s really who Sierra is; somebody that didn’t take no for an answer.
Tell me more about the classes and the work that you’re doing to uplift women during the pandemic?
People always ask me, ‘how did I get where I am’? For the last two months, I was able to sit down and get in touch with the people that have been trying to get in touch with me. That’s when I started my vendor’s list and webinars.
Over 500 women have started their companies outside of micro-blading during the pandemic. My mind has been blown away by how God is moving in the midst of this whole situation. Some women are making $5,000 and $6,000 a day. I hired over 100 customer service reps in China to communicate with women to help them understand the vendor’s list. So not only with the vendor list, I’m giving out the plugs. They don’t really know how to connect and talk to these vendors and understand how it works.
What made you decide to teach women your techniques as a businesswoman?
I found my purpose. A long time ago, I found my purpose when I was broken, and I didn’t have any money. And then I did my first client and I see how she got up and she cried, and she felt amazing and it made me feel better.
I always say the girl next to me is not my competition. She is my sister. I came from nothing. The projects. And now, all of those girls look up to me. So, me having a voice and pulling my sisters up is encouraging to them. If I can do it, and I have a 10th-grade education, you can do it.
What people really don’t know is the more that you are a blessing to other people the more that God will shed light on you and bless you. I can’t get all the money. The beauty industry is a trillion-dollar industry. So why not share it with my sisters?
What are some of the ways that you’ve been able to maintain staying power?
Just by being consistent. Every time I see someone, I always tell them to be consistent and that you have to believe in yourself. A lot of people you know don’t succeed in the beauty industry because they don’t have any faith.
As an entrepreneur, we all have ups and downs. I’ve been in business for 13 years. If I would have given up and said I can’t do this anymore when it was hard, or when my car was repossessed in front of my salon when I was 18 years old, I wouldn’t be who I am today. I wouldn’t have been able to make my first million when I was 27 years old.
You have to be consistent.
To learn more about Gates and the Glam Shop ATL, click here.
Following the recent protests behind the deaths of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd, many have been calling for a complete overhaul of policing practices across the country as well as defunding police departments. The New York State Assembly passed the Eric Garner Anti-Chokehold Act.
The bill is named after Eric Garner, who was killed in 2014 after New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer Daniel Pantaleo placed him in a chokehold during an arrest in Staten Island. Garner was allegedly selling individual cigarettes in front of a grocery store. In a video recording of the incident, Garner is seen crying out “I can’t breathe” almost a dozen times before passing out.
The video went viral on social media generating widespread national attention. Since then, politicians in the state have been working at pushing a bill to make use of the chokehold by law enforcement illegal in the state of New York.
The bill was overwhelmingly supported by New York Assembly members in a 140-3 vote. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has already promised to sign the new legislation once it arrives at his desk.
“We’re going to make sure next time this happens in New York State, police officers will be going to jail,” said Assembly Member Walter Mosely, who sponsored the bill, to Patch. “They are here to enforce the law, not to be above it.”
In addition to the chokehold bill, several other pieces of legislation were also passed surrounding police reform including a bill that will create a civil penalty for the biased misuse of emergency workers including racially-biased 911 calls.
“New York should have passed this a long time ago,” Rev. Al Sharpton said at a Foley Square press conference last week according to Patch. “Maybe the police would not have thought they could have gotten away with it with Floyd if they saw the signal in New York.”
Republicans are hoping to flip two seats currently held by Susie Lee and Steven Horsford.
Republicans are eyeing Nevada’s primaries on June 9 for opportunities to unseat a pair of Democrats facing tough reelection campaigns.
There aren’t any statewide positions up for grabs this election cycle in Nevada. But a couple of House races could prove competitive: Republicans are targeting the historically swingy District 3, as well as District 4, one of Nevada’s largest congressional districts. The incumbent Democrats, Susie Lee and Steven Horsford, first have to win primaries against a handful of challengers. But they have also both received funding from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s Frontline Program, which aims to help vulnerable candidates defend their seats — now and in the general election, assuming they win their primaries.
Nevada has shifted almost entirely to mail-in voting in order to curb the spread of the coronavirus, though it will still have some in-person polling locations. That makes turnout difficult to predict, but more Nevada voters have already cast their ballots in this year’s primaries than they did in 2016.
Roughly 19 percent of active registered voters submitted their ballots as of Friday, either through mail-in voting or in-person early voting, according to data from the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office.
Nevada has voted blue in three of the last four presidential elections, but it’s a battleground state this year. Just a few months ago, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders captured a sweeping victory in the state’s Democratic presidential presidential primary, buttressed in part by the state’s many Latino voters. Those voters could be key to keeping the state blue, but they’re up against an aging, increasingly conservative population.
Nevada polls close at 7 pm PT. Vox will have live results provided by Decision Desk. Here’s what you need to know about the state’s races.
District 3
Lee, a first-term member of Congress, has managed to amass a sizable pot of $2 million in campaign contributions — well above what her three major GOP rivals have raised. But while she is in a position of relative financial strength, her district, which encompasses the area south of Las Vegas, could still turn red in 2020. And on the eve of the primaries, she has come under fire for pushing the Trump administration to offer small business loans to the gaming industry as part of its coronavirus relief efforts — a measure that benefited her husband’s business.
The Daily Beast reported Monday that her husband, who owns a casino that incurred significant losses as businesses were forced to shut down, consequently received two federally backed small business loans amounting to a total of $5.6 million. A spokesperson for Lee, however, told the Daily Beast that she had “no influence over the decision to file the application [for the loans], and she had no influence over whether or not that application was approved or denied.”
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Rep. Susie Lee is one of two incumbent Democrats in Nevada facing a primary challenge from Republicans.
Democrats have held the district since 2016, when Lee’s predecessor and now Nevada’s junior US Sen. Jacky Rosen narrowly won, flipping the district for the first time in six years. Lee, a former nonprofit manager in Las Vegas, managed to continue that winning streak in 2018, bolstered by a blue wave in the midterms.
But Lee doesn’t have much of an edge this year in terms of Democratic voter registrations, which are just 3 percent above GOP registrations. And President Donald Trump narrowly won the district in 2016, suggesting that voters’ preferences don’t strictly align with a particular party.
She is also facing two primary challenges, one from Dennis Sullivan, a US Navy veteran and newcomer to politics who has criticized her education policy, and the other from Tiffany Ann Watson, a self-described “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” Democrat who has advocated against a ban on semi-automatic weapons.
The GOP field is more crowded with six candidates: Brian Nadell, a professional poker player; Corwin Newberry, who worked in the apparel industry for decades; Mindy Robinson, a reality television star; Dan Rodimer, a former professional wrestler; Dan Schwartz, the former Nevada state treasurer; and Victor Willert, a former school principal.
Rodimer, who was endorsed by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and Schwartz are leading the pack, having each raised more than $600,000 in campaign funds. Rodimer has sought to paint Schwartz as a liberal in disguise, even though Schwartz says he supports Trump and Second Amendment rights and opposes federal funding for abortions.
District 4
To keep his seat in District 4, Horsford will have to fend off five primary challengers, some of whom called on him to drop out of the race after he admitted to having a prolonged extramarital affair with a former intern for then-Nevada Sen. Harry Reid. Republicans are hoping that the infighting among Democrats will clear the way for them to recapture the seat.
Horsford, a former state senator and executive at the Culinary Workers Union, the largest union in the state, has not indicated any intention to drop out of the race. Some of his Democratic opponents have said that the affair is a personal matter that does not necessarily impact his ability to serve voters. But others — including Gabrielle “Brie” D’Ayr, a US Navy veteran and former candidate for the Nevada State Assembly — have suggested that it is disqualifying.
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Rep. Steven Horsford, at the US Capitol on March 27.
Eight Republicans are competing to unseat him: Rosalie Bingham, an investor and entrepreneur; Leo Blundo, a restaurant owner and the current Nye County commissioner; Jim Marchant, a former Nevada assemblyman; Charles Navarro, a US Navy veteran; Sam Peters, an Air Force veteran who started his own insurance business; Randi Reed, who works in commercial real estate; Lisa Song Sutton, a small business owner and former Miss Nevada; and Rebecca Wood, another small business owner. No clear frontrunner has emerged.
It’s not the first time that District 4’s representative has been mired in scandal. Ruben Kihuen, who held the seat from 2017 to 2019, decided not to run for reelection amid sexual misconduct allegations brought by a woman staffer on his campaign. Then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi had asked him to resign.
Reid’s former intern, Gabriela Linder, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that Horsford had “offered her financial support, introduced her to political connections and filmed a segment for her young son’s YouTube show using his congressional staff.” She has also spoken about the affair on Twitter and the podcast Mistress for Congress. In the podcast, she claims that the affair began in 2009 and lasted more than a decade.
Horsford has not contested her claims.
“It is true that I had a previous relationship outside of my marriage, over the course of several years,” he told the Review-Journal. “I’m deeply sorry to all of those who have been impacted by this very poor decision, most importantly my wife and family. Out of concern for my family during this challenging time, I ask that our privacy is respected.”
District 4 spans North Las Vegas as well as large swaths of rural land. Horsford first held the seat from 2013 to 2015, losing it to a Republican before reclaiming it again in 2018.
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Democrats are long shots in the increasingly red state, but they aren’t entirely shut out of power.
Once upon a time, West Virginia was a Democratic stronghold. It was one of just a few states that preferred President Jimmy Carter over challenger Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election, and the state had twoDemocratic senators as recently as 2015.
But those days are long gone.
On Tuesday, Democrats are set to choose which of their candidates will try to retake two positions currently held by Republicans: the governor’s mansion, and one of the state’s US Senate seats. West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice — who switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party in 2017, at a time when Democrats in most of the country were gearing up for major electoral victories in the next midterm election — will face a primary of his own.
Whichever Democrat wins the Senate primary will face a steep uphill battle to unseat Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito this fall. President Donald Trump crushed Democrat Hillary Clinton by more than 40 points in 2016. It is a testament to the political skill of Sen. Joe Manchin, a right-leaning Democrat who has held statewide office for nearly two decades and is not up for reelection this year, that his political career remains alive even as his state transforms into one of the reddest in the nation.
Tuesday’s West Virginia primary won’t just reveal much about how Democrats hope to weather the challenges facing them in the Mountain State, however. It will also reshape the state’s highest court.
Three of the state’s five state Supreme Court seats are up for grabs
Judicial elections are always a fraught enterprise. Most voters who aren’t practicing attorneys know little about the judges in their state. And judges are supposed to follow the law without partisan favor, rather than being loyal to the constituencies that got them their job.
In West Virginia, state Supreme Court elections are especially worrisome. In 2004, coal baron Don Blankenship essentially bought a seat on the state Supreme Court for $3 million. Blankenship spent that much to elect his preferred candidate to the state’s highest court, after which the justice went on to strike down a $50 million verdict against Blankenship’s company. (The US Supreme Court later ruled that the justice should have recused himself, effectively requiring the state Supreme Court to rehear the case.)
Moreover, in 2016 the state made its judicial races “nonpartisan.” In practice, that doesn’t mean that political parties are indifferent about who wins this election. It simply means that the ballot will not inform voters which party each candidate prefers.
But because these races are nominally nonpartisan, there is no primary election to choose each party’s candidate. The winners of Tuesday’s races will join the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, the state’s highest court. It is unusual for so many seats to be up for grabs at once, but it’s the result of a scandal that forced three justices to resign in 2018 (the details of this scandal, which include a $32,000 couch, can be found here).
The state’s Republican Party endorsed three candidates: incumbent Justice Tim Armstead, Fifth Judicial Circuit Judge Lora Dyer, and Putnam County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Kris Raynes. The Republican State Leadership Committee’s Judicial Fairness Initiative has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to elect these candidates. Meanwhile, a rival group called ReSet West Virginia has spent similar sums of money supporting a different ticket of candidates: incumbent Justice John Hutchison, former Justice Richard Neely, and 13th Judicial Circuit Judge Joanna Tabit.
Both parties will pick gubernatorial nominees
Incumbent Gov. Jim Justice, a billionaire former Democrat who switched to the GOP after he took office, attracted two reasonably serious challengers in the state’s Republican primary. But neither one seems to have caught fire. A recent poll showed Justice winning his primary with over 53 percent of the vote.
Meanwhile, the Democratic primary contest resembles, at least on the surface, the cultural divide between former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the top two contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination. Kanawha County Commissioner Ben Salango, whom Manchin endorsed, plays the role of the establishment favorite. Salango’s strongest opponent, meanwhile, is community organizer Stephen Smith.
A recent poll showed Salango winning with just over 30 percent of the vote, while Smith received a little more than 27 percent support. The poll also found more than a quarter of the electorate undecided, with three long-shot candidates winning about 14 percent of the vote in total.
Democrats will pick a US Senate candidate
The Democratic primary also features a three-way race between former state Sen. Richard Ojeda, former South Charleston Mayor Richie Robb, and activist Paula Jean Swearengin for the party’s US Senate nomination.
Whoever prevails, however, is likely to face a very difficult race. Capito, the incumbent Republican, clobbered her Democratic opponent by nearly 28 points in 2014.
Support Vox’s explanatory journalism
Every day at Vox, we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you, and our audience around the world, with information that has the power to save lives. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower you through understanding. Vox’s work is reaching more people than ever, but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles, videos, and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today.
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