As everyone knows by now, there’s a lil’ movement called “Stop Snitching!” and I’m not going to take up the time to explain it all because the name is self explanatory, but for those that don’t know about this movement, there’s a nice write up over at Wikipedia about it.
The whole movement obviously sends out the wrong message to everyday citizens that it’s not okay to collaborate or “snitch” to police in order to solve a crime, but this story is where even that message gets a little misconstrued.
Robert Tate was the realest of the real. He was a thug. He ran the streets. He understood the street code. He was a soldier. He decided that he wasn’t ever going to snitch. He wasn’t going to snitch no matter the situation even when it came to his own murder.
From, the Chicago Sun Times:
Tate, 17, was shot in the chest as someone approached him on a West Side sidewalk on the evening of April 12, police say. Seeing that Tate was wounded badly and probably wouldn’t make it, an officer asked: Do you know who shot you?
“I know,” Tate told him. “But I ain’t telling you s—.”
That’s according to Harrison Area Police Cmdr. Anthony Riccio, who said the murder investigation is focusing on a possible shooter — even though Tate took his secret to the grave.
“Unfortunately it’s almost a culture among the drug dealers and gang members, that code of silence, that ‘don’t snitch’ mentality that they not only have when they’re witnesses, but also when they’re the victims,” Riccio said.
Let’s end this entire “Stop Snitching!” movement once and for all. It truly is a sad day when someone won’t even “snitch” to help police solve their own murder.
