A boy so diminutive that the camera must tilt down to capture him waves a silver handgun while directing obscenities at the police. A self-proclaimed Park Heights drug dealer names three police officers who he says can be bribed with drugs. A young woman in a barber shop warns "Doobie" to stay away from her because he "was snitchin' on my man."
The shock-value scenes from Stop Snitching 2, viewed this week by The Sun, are virtually interchangeable with those from the original. In many ways, the sequel replicates a formula that, three years ago, made Stop Snitching wildly popular in Baltimore neighborhoods and put the city's criminal culture on national display.
Like the original, the sequel is a rough-cut montage of street scenes and obscene, anti-law enforcement rants. There's no plot and no real dialogue. There is, once again, an overarching theme: Hatred of criminals who tell on other criminals.
"We don't know who snitches are, but when we find out, we gonna bust a cap," shouts the young boy who moments earlier had held a gun.
But there are major differences between Stop Snitching and Stop Snitching 2 - both in the documentary itself and in the marketing strategy accompanying it.
This time, producer Rodney Bethea said, he wants to build buzz about the DVD, which will cost $9.99, before it is released in late January. He started accepting preorders last week through his Urly Media Web site, and a trailer he posted last month on video-sharing site YouTube had been viewed about 14,000 times as of yesterday.
In addition to profit motives, Bethea said there are more profound reasons why he is promoting the DVD early. This way, he said, he can explain to would-be viewers what they are about to watch instead of defending the product to people who have seen it and made up their minds.
The 34-year-old moviemaker, barber and property investor said he learned this lesson the hard way. Like the eight rap-centered documentaries that preceded it, the original Stop Snitching was intended for an "urban, hip-hop" audience," he said.
But a cameo appearance by NBA star and Baltimore native Carmelo Anthony helped it cross over to a mainstream audience, where politicians and law enforcement officials held it up as evidence of the community's refusal to cooperate with the criminal justice system.
Stop Snitching, said Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy and others, carried a message of witness intimidation - that it was OK, even encouraged, to harm residents who assisted the police.
