Troubled Brooklyn rapper Bobby Shmurda has furthered the ongoing saga behind his incarceration, announcing that he will be suing the city of New York and its police department stemming from an incident back in June of 2014, when Shmurda was arrested at a friend’s apartment on what he claims were false charges surrounding both drugs and guns.
The Hot Nigga MC, whose career began as a teenager but was seriously derailed following multiple incidents including the aforementioned but also having been charged with conspiracy to commit murder and reckless endangerment as well as being charged with promoting contraband after he was found trying to smuggle a knife into the jail he has been incarcerated in since December of 2014.
Facing a sentence of between eight and 25 years on weapons charges pertaining to his alleged gang-related activity (alleged members he associates with are facing 100 years in prison), Shmurda is now seeking compensation for his original arrest with the lawsuit. It is being alleged that the police who arrested Shmurda in July had kicked down the door and illegally entered and searched the Rockaway Parkway premises without a warrant. No weapons or drugs or any related paraphernalia was found in the search and the charges were eventually dismissed entirely, but Shmurda (whose real name is Ackquille Pollard) is maintaining he suffered permanent ‘nervous shock and mental anguish’ as a result of the arrest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJwKKKd2ZYE
The case of Bobby Shmurda is one that has raised a slew of social issues surrounding hip-hop, particularly around the alleged profiling of Shmurda by the police as a result of some of his more criminally-oriented rap lyrics (an issue we also delved into with the case of Tiny Doo in late 2014). Shmurda alleges that the officers who arrested him falsely were ‘chanting’ his lyrics at him and James Essig, the head of the NYPD that made the arrests, was controversially quoted as saying that Shmurda’s songs were “almost like a real-life document of what they were doing on the street”.
Bobby Shmurda’s latest trial date is set for next week on May the 11th barring any unforeseen changes. It will be interesting to follow how that finally plays out along with this latest wrinkle. We’ll keep you posted here.
Image: Billboard