Boy, talk about life imitating art that was imitating life.

Felicia “Snoop” Pearson is back behind bars. Some people, like the grandmother of Okia Toomer, might feel Pearson is where she belongs. But getting picked up on a warrant to appear as a witness in a murder trial and then getting busted for marijuana possession tends to redefine the term “jive humble.”

Pearson is the 28-year-old actress who played the homicidal character Snoop on “The Wire,” that gritty HBO series about street life in Bodymore, Murderland that critics said was the best drama television has ever produced.

During her teen years, Pearson was one of the street thugs who helped Baltimore get the nickname Bodymore. In April of 1995, Okia “Kia” Toomer, only 15, was fatally shot during a fight. Cops charged Pearson, then only 14, as an adult with Toomer’s murder. Pearson was sentenced to eight years in prison and served five.

Pearson was back to slinging drugs when Michael K. Williams, who played “Omar” on “The Wire,” noticed her in a nightclub and brought her to the set. Pearson was hired to portray the character based on her real-life persona -- her nickname actually is Snoop -- for the fourth and fifth seasons.

Pearson says that prison changed her. She’s no longer in the street life. She wants a career as an actress, and wants to move her grandmother out of “the ‘hood.” Pearson claims she wants to leave that criminal past behind her.

The past she may want to leave behind her, but Pearson still clings dearly to some of the values of that street life. And what’s the value Pearson cherishes the most?

Why, “no snitching,” of course. According to The Baltimore Sun, Pearson failed to appear in court last April to testify against a man accused of murder. The news story also said that Pearson ignored calls from the state’s attorney’s office and even told the prosecutor assigned to the case “that she wished to have no further personal contact with her.”

Pearson picked the wrong time to pluck the nerve of Baltimore State’s Attorney Patricia Jessamy who, like Snoop, is a black woman and in her own way every bit as tough as Pearson.
 
A judge issued a body attachment warrant for Pearson. When Baltimore cops went to her home last week, they allegedly found two blunts. Pearson was nailed on the minor drug charge, but could be held until mid-September, when the murder trial starts.

Pearson’s reluctance to testify against Steven James Lashley -- who’s accused of stabbing three men, one fatally, outside a chicken joint -- shows she can’t leave the “no snitching” code of street life behind. If that’s her reason, then Pearson, like way too many others, is clearly confused about the code.

Snitching is when you, as a criminal, commit a crime with another criminal or criminals. You get caught, and then to save your own miserable, worthless hide, rat out your crime partner or partners and then cut a deal to get less time.

Pearson is accused of no crime. Police and prosecutors aren’t saying she helped Lashley stab the men, only that she saw the incident. They only want Pearson to tell what she saw and what she knows. If she does, then that’s not snitching. That’s simply Lashley’s tough luck.

The woman known as Snoop should look at this another way: Maybe snitching could have saved her from spending five years in prison.

Pearson denies killing Toomer. If she’s right, then Toomer’s real killer is probably still walking Bodymore’s streets. And in 1995, there must have been several people, possibly dozens, who knew who Toomer’s real killer was.

But not one of them came forward, probably because they didn’t want to “snitch.”

Pearson should also consider this: Earlier this year, a black man accused of killing a Prince George’s County, Md. cop was strangled in the county lockup. A medical examiner ruled the death a homicide. The investigation hit a wall when corrections officers who run the lockup refused to cooperate with investigators, invoking their own no-snitching code.

Whether it’s in the streets or in the ranks of law enforcement, this no-snitching mentality has clearly got to go. I hope Snoop realizes that, posts bail on the minor marijuana charge and agrees to testify so she can walk out of jail and get on with her life.