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Stop Snitchin'

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Stop Snitchin' refers to a modern campaign by criminals to frighten people with information from reporting their activities to the police. It specifically refers to a Baltimore-based home made DVD that threatened violence against would be informants.

Origin

The Stop Snitching campaign gained national attention around late 2004 in Baltimore, Maryland, where a DVD released by Skinny Suge Records, titled "Stop Snitching!" began to circulate. In some footage a number of men claiming to be drug dealers address the camera, and threaten violence against anyone who reports what they know about their crimes to the authorities. Notably, Carmelo Anthony, a former Baltimore resident and small forward for the Denver Nuggets basketball team appears in the video. In subsequent interviews, Anthony claimed that his appearance in the video was a joke, the product of friends making a home movie. He claims not to take the film or its message seriously.

As the DVD spread across the country, corresponding shirts became popular in urban youth fashion. The shirts typically show a stop sign emblazoned with the words "Stop Snitchin'". Some shirts bear bullet holes, implying that snitches should (or will) be murdered. The shirts have been more widely circulated than the original DVD. The Diplomats, a Harlem, New York-based rap group, made their own version of the Stop Snitchin' shirts, with their logo on the end of the short sleeves.

File:Hood82dvd.jpg
Hoodz' Stop Snitchin' album cover.

The "Stop Snitchin'" T-Shirts were originated in Boston in 1999[1]. The now infamous shirts were originally a promotional item for a local "mixtape" album, titled Stop Snitchin' Vol. 1, released by local Boston Hip Hop legend TANGG (Tellin' Ass Niggas Gotta Go) & LetUsLive Entertainment. The shirts quickly gained popularity in many of the Black & Latino neighborhoods of Boston. Within the next few years many different versions of the shirt were released as the demand continued to grow. LetUsLive Entertainment went on to release Stop Snitchin' - Vol. 2 & Vol. 3, follow up's in the controvesial series, and co-founded the controversial website, StopSnitching.com.

In 2005 another Stop Snitching DVD was released by a company called HOODZ. The DVD contained famous rappers like Young Jeezy and Baby discussing the issue of snitching. The DVD also contained a segment about Boston, MA and featured TANGG and other "Boston OGs" talking about rapper Benzino and displaying court paperwork on him and his associates. In Feb 2006, America's Most Wanted aired a show[2] focusing on the Stop Snitchin' campaign. The episode showcased the start of the campaign in Boston, and followed to many other cities, including Baltimore, Pittsburgh, New Bedford & Kansas City where the movement has become extremely popular.

Public Reaction

In response to the video, Baltimore Police created their own campaign, "Keep Talkin'", distributed on free DVDs and T shirts the same way the Stop Snitchin' campaign worked. Its goal was to assure potential state's witnesses of their safety from retaliation and stress the importance of cleaning up Baltimore's streets.

In Pittsburgh, a witness was ejected from a courtroom for wearing the Stop Snitchin' shirt, forcing prosecutors to drop the charges against three defendants accused of conspiring to murder the witness [3].

In Boston in December of 2005, faced with a murder rate at 10-year high, mayor Thomas Menino announced that he would begin confiscating Stop Snitchin' shirts from local stores. Though Menino rapidly backed away from mandatory confiscation to endorse voluntary removal of the shirts by store owners, his proposals sparked considerable controversy locally and nationally. Though many saw the initiative as ineffective, counterproductive, or misleading, some community members of high crime inner city areas such as Dorchester defended the move as important to conquering fear on the streets and assisting in criminal prosecutions. [4]

A spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties Union rapidly opposed Menino's confiscation plan, claiming that it would violate the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment guarantee of free speech, as well as the Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments. The shirts gained attention in Boston in 2004 when the mother of an alleged gang member (and a number of other spectators) wore the shirt during her son's trial for the shooting death of 10-year-old Trina Persad. [5]. Suffolk Superior Court Judge Margaret R. Hinkle successfully banned the shirts from the courtroom as a witness intimidation tactic.

On December 4, 2005, under the direction of Menino, Boston Police officers removed Stop Snitchin' shirts from shelves in a Dorchester store after meeting with Marco Antonio Ennis, who owns the store and manufactures the shirts. Ennis, a former member of the rap group Made Men, agreed to stop selling the shirts after discussion with the mayor, community members, and relatives of recent homicide victims. Other stores, including Bargain T and T in Roxbury have agreed to cease selling the shirts. The controversy, however, seems to have increased the demand for the shirts, though changed the demographic of their wearers towards the suburbs and away from the inner city [6].

In 2006, the Stop Snitchin' debate was revived when a Boston judge banned the shirts from all state courthouses, also disallowing cameraphones in the interest of witness protection. [7].

The Stop Snitchin' shirts have inspired parodies including "Stop Menino" and "Stop Stop Stop Snitching" shirts.


References


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