From an early age, most of us take a dim view of
snitches and many of you will have known that kid in school that, you might say was an informant for the teacher.
Telltales, turncoats, tattlers, sneak squealer, stoolies, rats, and grassers.
They don't usually come off as the best kind of people, but then you might look at a case more deeply, and ask if perhaps
that person did the right thing. Maybe they had no choice.
It was getting one person in trouble, or many others getting hurt. The criminal underworld might swear an oath of allegiance
to never tell on others,
but maybe there's a right time to snitch. Listen to these stories of well-known weasels, and tell us what you think
Tim Allen: We guess there's a lot you don't know about the American
actor and comedian called Tim Allen, who was actually born Timothy Alan D*ck. The funny guy had quite a troubled life when he was
young and not many people know much about his cocaine dealing days.
We're not talking about sorting friends out with a grand before they headed off to the 70s disco. We're talking about a serious dealer.
There's some mention of this on his Wikipedia page,
but the details are pretty scant. As the story goes, cops were onto Allen since he was selling quite a lot of the
Columbian marching powder, and in 1978, there was a sting operation to capture him. He was caught with
1.4 pounds of cocaine, which was enough to be looking at some serious time behind bars.
He didn't really do that much time and that's because he snitched. He only ended up serving almost two and a half years at the
Federal Correctional Institution in Sandstone, Minnesota, even though he had been looking at more time.
He once said in an interview: I was put in a holding cell with 20 other guys.
We had to crap in the same crapper in the middle of the room, and I just told myself: I can't do this for seven
and a half years. I want to kill myself.
He might have also been given a life sentence because, at the time of his arrest , a new law was passed that warranted such long
sentencing for guys caught with large quantities of cocaine or
heroin. In a book about his arrest
it said to get out of doing so much time, Allen agreed to cooperate with the authorities, as to what was going down in the
drug-dealing scene in his area. That book states that he helped the authorities indict 20 people in the drug trade and
resulted in the conviction and sentencing of four major drug dealers.
It also says the judge made sure he wouldn't end up in a local prison, because that could endanger his life.
Court documents also revealed that the judge thought him to be a talented up-and-coming comedian.
Elia Kazan
This Hollywood movie director was one of the greats. He directed movies that have gone down in history,
such as A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront and East of Eden.
But in the 1950s at around the time his creative talents were peaking,
he also became a government snitch and named names. And these were some of the biggest names in Hollywood.
You see, Kazan had once been a devoted communist. He gave that up. But knowing what he knew and with the US government paranoid about
communists, they wanted to recruit him to ask him who in Hollywood circles was a commie.
Kazan ended up testifying before the House Committee on un-american
activities, and he gave up a lot of big names. Mostly actors. Those actors' careers and in some part lives were then destroyed. They were
blacklisted from Hollywood. At the time, a lot of other Hollywood names thought Kazan should not have done what he did.
Seeing that the red under the bed thing was viewed by some people as an all-American witch-hunt
that was far from ethical. Many years later actors, would condemn this director,
even though his talent for making movies was never questioned.
Ronald Reagan
The actor that would become the president of the United States was also a snitch, and in fact, been a lot of times spying on
his fellow actors and other creatives in the movie scene. Reagan wasn't a communist that had defected, but when in
1946 he was visited by the FBI and told commies were among him in Hollywood,
he agreed to help. The FBI has files on lots of suspected communists, but with Reagan's help
they got more information. The New York Times, many years later would write that the evidence Reagan provided was not always
cogent. In fact, while he usually did what he was told,
he might well have given the FBI weak information that nonetheless
affected a few careers. Known as Informant T-10, Reagan was one of the many people in Hollywood that was giving information to the FBI.
T-10 was mentioned in an FBI document written in 1947, called communist infiltration of the motion picture industry.
There was also a well-known actress called T-9. The document states that Reagan wouldn't just overhear people
talking, but would actively interview people to find out what their political leanings were.
Walt Disney, yep
The man whose name is behind all those cartoons we all know and love was also a snitch. The New York Times wrote in the
90s, that documents released under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that Walter Elias Disney had been an informant for the FBI from
1940 until he died in
1966. As with most classified files released to the public though, so much is blacked out. All the good bits of course.
But Disney, who was well known for being planted firmly on the right side of politics, testified before the committees on un-American
activities in Washington. It said J Edgar Hoover did favors for Disney and Disney in return gave his scripts to Hoover to check them out.
Maybe they would have content Hoover didn't approve of. It said Hoover even made a slight change to an episode of The Mickey Mouse Club.
Disney made sure some Mickey Mouse cartoons made the police look like great guys.
This was done to get into the heads of American children. The Times writes that because of all the work could Disney did for the
FBI, they made him a full Special Agent in Charge
Contact. That same article states as a bureau contact. Disney reported on the activities of Hollywood actors, writers, producers, directors,
technicians and union activists
suspected of political subversion. It's not known just how many people were affected by Walt's involvement with the FBI.
Kobe Bryant
In 2003, the famed
basketball player Kobe Bryant was arrested on sexual assault charges. During this time Bryant would tell the cops, that his teammate, Shaquille O'Neal would pay
women 1 million dollars to get his way with them.
The charges were dropped against Bryant , but one might wonder why he threw O'Neal under the bus. Shaq always denied
he did such things. Once saying to the media: I never hang out with Kobe,
I never hung around with him. In the 7 or 8 years we were to gather. We were never together.
So, how this guy can think he knows anything about me or my business. It's funny. And, one last thing:
I'm not the one buying love. He's the one buying love.
It seems these two really didn't get along,
and in this case, the man who was snitched on, snitched back. USA Today wrote years later after the case against him was dropped and
a civil suit was settled out of court, with no admission of guilt from Bryant. Agents of prominent
NBA players would still cite the O'Neal subplot as the sword of sin that inspired their clients to steer clear of Laker Land.
Lil' Cease
American rapper James Lloyd, better known as Lil' Cease said he wasn't really a snitch and he had no choice, but to take the stand
and offer evidence in a trial against his former friend Lil Kim.
she was convicted of perjury and ended up serving one year behind bars, while Lil' Cease was at the incident of a shootout,
involving Lil Kim and her crew and another crew. She never called him to defend her. Instead the authorities called him.
He said he had to do, what they asked.
Later, he said being that we was
witnesses there, the US government subpoenaed us and there's nothing you can do about that when your subpoena do you either come, or they take
Your a** to jail. It's just that simple
Henry Hill
We will only mention one snitch that put Mafia colleagues behind bars because this man became famous.
Mainly, thanks to Martin Scorsese's brilliant movie Goodfellas, but Hill and his own right became well-known notably for his interviews.
Especially his appearances on the Howard Stern Show. He also wrote a book called the wiseguy cookbook.
My favorite recipes from my life as a good fella to cooking on the run. Before any of that happened,
He was put into the witness protection program because he ratted on people belonging to the Mafia. Hill was not
exactly a model person in the witness protection program and was eventually removed from it.
How did he feel about sending people to prison?
It seems he thought it was him or them and he decided to look after himself as for the many who
suffered while he was in the Mafia.
He once told the BBC I don't give a heck, what those people think I'm doing the right thing now.
6ix9ine
As we write this the American rapper and actor Fat Joe just talked about
6ix9ine and said: The worst thing you could do in the history of mankind is being a rat. You gotta understand when you tell
you destroy families. He had a few kind words for 6ix9ine calling him a bit of a gimmick, but what's the story here?
Okay
So the young man Daniel Hernandez aka Tekashi 6ix9ine, rose to fame in 2017 after releasing a single GUMMO.
He was also fond of using social media to build up fame, and with his wild hair and face full of tattoos,
he certainly stood out. But then he was arrested on federal racketeering and weapons charges.
He testified against two alleged Nine Trey Gang members, one called Aljermiah "Nuke" Mack, and another called Anthony "Harv" Ellison.
But during his testimony, he accused other people of violent accent, just talked a lot about gangs and who belonged to them. He was kind
of bringing down the house on some of his associates. With all the charges against him,
he could be looking at many years inside prison walls, but because he's cooperated with authorities,
he may not serve so many years. Of course, he likely won't ever work in the music business again.
Well, it'd be hard to get people on his side in the rap scene
He has been criticized by many big names. His life will be in danger anyway, either inside prison, or on the streets.
He's declined to go into the witness protection program
but hey, with a face like his it'd be hard to hide. Looking at recent reports,
It may seem he will hide in plain sight when he hits the streets, but he will use the cash
he's made to have 24-hour security. His trial is set for December 18th, 2019
We'll just add to the end of the show, that while snitching is seen by many people as a bad thing to do,
you might wonder just what harm not snitching might do. Is it okay to snitch on a killer?
What if they go on to cause a lot more trouble and heartache?
A person interviewed by NPR
said that the taboo of snitching needs to stop, because when people don't go to the cops, the community just faces more dangers.
He said even law-abiding people tend not to snitch, as they just don't want any trouble, but that has to stop.
Snitches might sometimes get stitches in prison and on the outside,
but some people think snitching is the ethical thing to do at times, and it can sometimes
actually be a brave thing to do.
We found one article online that told us that parents in one
crime-ridden neighborhood in Florida were trying to end the no snitching culture that their kids were growing up in. If they got together to fight
for the introduction of a new bill, which would better protect the identities of people that go to the police.
They said there was just too much blood on the streets and that was partly because
killers knew they were somewhat protected by the no snitching policy.
Tampa Bay police were interviewed for the article, and the spokesperson said this: We have Violent Crimes where there were dozens of witnesses,
but they don't provide the information needed to arrest someone. Many times that's due to the fear of some type of retaliation. That
same story talked about lots of shootings. And the sad thing was, that a lot of the victims were still teenagers.
We might wonder if snitching is sometimes the right thing to do.
So after hearing these stories, what do you think about these snitches. Were any in the right doing what they did?
Tell us in the comments. Now go watch most epic fails of the witness protection program. Thanks for watching
and as always don't forget to like, share and subscribe. See you next time.