Working with the boys...

To Snitch or Not to Snitch
written by Just K

So a homeboy of mine recently got his car jacked. Not that it should matter, but he’s a college-educated family man pushing 30. When the cops pull up to his place of residence, he’s standing outside and waves the cops over to where the car used to be. Sure enough, he ends up handcuffed and kissing the pavement with a pistol at the back of his dome. This makes me that much more reluctant to give popo a ring next time something happens. Then I see this video:




Wow! Clearly Tip, a former no snitching advocate, made this video as part of his community service sentence. The Tips phone number just adds insult to injury. So, Mysonne went in on Tip in this video:




Shoutout to Mysonne for spending eight minutes talking about another rapper’s 30 second commercial. Double shoutout for dropping more “niggas” in his video than a klan member at a rap concert. Honestly, I’m not mad at T.I. Technically it looks like the ad is meant for the average citizen and not criminals pointing out other criminals. Technicalities aside, in my opinion, dude is mature enough to understand that he’d be losing millions and, more importantly, time with his children by not doing a stupid commercial. Was the commercial lame? Yeah. Is it totally hypocritical when you look at some of his past work? Hells yeah. But I can appreciate a man that puts his family in front of “the code.” Maybe if we had more people willing to make such sacrifices we wouldn’t have so many fatherless kids getting ready to father soon-to-be fatherless kids.

Now, as far as the code goes, I’ve always been conflicted. So, as an upstanding citizen I’m supposed to call something in if I’m aware of a crime that has been committed, right? First of all, where’s the guarantee that I don’t get viewed as the criminal? Secondly, people tend to forget that police have their own “code.” (If you haven’t seen Serpico, you’re missing Al Pacino at his finest.) When other cops participate in unsavory acts, they’ve got a badge code that works the same way the street code works – don’t talk. In fact, the code goes higher up with the boys in blue. Hell, sometimes it’s the police chief or even the judge that let’s a shady cop off the hook. Hypocrisy, I tell you. Regardless of the crime, it’s just hard to be responsible for watching one of your own go to jail. We even rooted for O.J. like we didn’t see him try to peace out in the white bronco (ride ‘em cowboy). But the point is, it’s hard to listen to the cops tell us to call in when they don’t do the same.

But there’s always a flip side. God forbid something happens to a friend or family member, I don’t know how I’d handle it if half a community saw what happened and nobody said anything. So, shouldn’t that same thought process apply if I see a crime? Shouldn’t I think about whose friend or family member something just happened to and put a call in?

So, yeah, I don’t know what to do. But if I decide to drop a tip, the good news is I know what number to call.