“Behind enemy lines”
On Monday, Orta began a four-year prison sentence, after taking a plea deal in July for a weapons and drug case.
It is the result, he and his lawyers argue, of a police campaign to harm his life. After filming Garner’s death, they claim, he was increasingly harassed and targeted by police and was arrested at least eight times in fewer than two years.
Of several criminal cases against him, only two charges stuck. Two weeks after filming Garner’s death, Orta was arrested on charges of possessing a handgun and was later caught selling heroin to an undercover policeman.
“[Hours after] Eric died, at 4am in the morning, there was a spotlight shining through my window. I looked out the window and there was a cop [police] car outside,” Orta told Al Jazeera on Friday.
“They parked outside my house and stopped people coming in and out of my house. That was going on until the day they ruled it [Garner’s case] a homicide. I’ve been arrested and let out many times. And now I am convicted of only two of seven cases.”
According to reports, Orta is suing New York City for $10m for unwarranted arrests by the NYPD that he says were attempts to discredit his video of Garner’s final moments.
Al Jazeera contacted New York City police for comment, but did not receive a response at time of publication.
In August 2014, Pat Lynch, president of New York’s biggest police union, said it “is criminals like Mr. Orta who carry illegal firearms who stand to benefit the most by demonising the good work of police officers.”
Orta has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and suffers from depression, anxiety and paranoia.
“Orta is suing New York City for $10m for unwarranted arrests by the NYPD that he says were attempts to discredit his video of Garner’s final moments.”
“My biggest fear about prison would be not coming out alive. I fear for myself being behind enemy lines,” he said. “I’m going in there with a level head. I’m praying that I can come right out and continue my life as an activist.”
Since Garner’s death, Orta joined the police watchdog organisation Copwatch, has given talks at universities, and become a symbol of the Black Lives Matter movement.
At a recent event in Brooklyn, New York, Jewel Miller, the mother of Garner’s youngest child, told Orta: “You took the video … you really filmed up to the last seven and something minutes that he was here on Earth. And even though those words of ‘I can’t breathe’ are in our heads … it is the only voice for my daughter she’ll ever know. And because of you I’ll forever be grateful. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Orta, a husband and father to two daughters, said he watches the video often.
“I watched it the day before yesterday,” he said. “It just stays in my head. I try not to watch certain parts.”
While he does not regret filming the killing, he wishes he had posted the clip anonymously.
“The only regret I have is not making my identity safe,” he said.
Still grieving the loss of Garner, he said: “I miss his sense of humour the most.”