Judge Tells Prosecutor That Writing Rap Lyrics About Gangs Is Not A Crime, Duh!

San Diego rapper Tiny Doo faced up to life in prison
because prosecutors said he profited from gang
activity by writing lyrics about gangs.
A California court tossed the charges recently.  

Last November, I told you about the rapper named Tiny Doo, who was jailed and charged with, as prosecutors put it, fitting the legal definition of a gang member who 'willfully promotes, furthers, assists in any felonious criminal conduct by members of that gang.'

Prosecutors were applying a law that says if somebody personally profits from gang activity they can be charged with a felony.

So yeah, if Tiny Doo was gunrunning to make a profit and supply the gangs, that would be a problem. It would also be a problem if the gangs paid him to tell them the location of somebody they wanted to kill.

As I noted a few months ago, Tiny Doo did none of these things.

He released a rap album called "No Safety" which had cover art showing a gun and bullets. Plus some of the lyrics dealt with the things gang members do.

Because he made money rapping about the things gangs do, he profited from gang activity, said prosecutors.

Thankfully, a judge just said, Uh, No. The First Amendment wins after all. Just because gang members like your music, doesn't mean you should be charged with the crime of profiting from gangs.

Says 7NBC in San Diego:

"(Prosecutors) claimed his homegrown music helped inspire the violence, even though there is no evidence connecting him to the actual shootings."

The prosecutors' logic, it seems, is akin to somebody listening to the old song "I Don't Like Mondays," which is about a school shooting, and then claiming a real school shooting arose because the assailant happened to hear that song.

Or as Tiny Doo's defense attorney, Brian Watkins said, "I think the whole world was watching because when they put our First Amendment here in America on trial, to say that Brandon Duncan's rap music encouraged these shootings."

That's why I'm making such a big deal out of this one case. Slippery slopes don't always happen, of course, but what's to stop some prosecutor from making a crime out of producing any kind of art the prosecutor thinks is distasteful.

I happen to like the song, "I Don't Like Mondays" so should I be arrested as a potential school shooter even though the last thing I ever want to do is bring a gun near a school. (I don't even have a gun, for crissakes. )  

 7NBC in San Diego says San Diego County District Attorney spokeswoman Tanya Sierra released a statement saying the office would respect the court's decision but added this:

"While a debate over the law can be constructive and educational, combatting the scourge of deadly gang violence remains our focus. Instead of waiting for ore shootings and murders to victimize the community we used this law to cripple the organization."

I'm all for stopping violence and putting gangs out of business, but maybe prosecutors should have went after gangs without getting creative with the First Amendment. I'm sure they can pin a lot of evidence on gang members who shot or threatened people.

The District Attorney's office said all the people they charged in connection with the Tiny Doo case are gang members. So, prove it. Is Tiny Doo a gang member or not?  If he is, you'd think there'd be evidence beyond the fact he made rap music.

The statement from Sierra's office said court records show that everybody's a gang member in this case and the media is being manipulated.

I would think that somebody in the media would find the supposed evidence that Tiny is a gang member and report it.

If so, charge him. With real evidence. Until then, I'm totally writing this off as prosecutorial overreach. And I'm offended the prosecutor has such little regard for the First Amendment.

California Prosecutor Thinks The First Amendment Is Annoying, Can Be Ignored

A rapper named Tiny Doo faces a possible long
prison sentence because a whack job prosecutor says
he's profiting from gangs, what with the images
in guns and bullets and all on this album cover. 

Let's face it. Few people like gang members.

Given all the murders, the thefts, the drugs, the violence and whatever else they're up to, it's always awesome to prosecute when they start committing crimes.

So it's good that the district attorney in San Diego is going after a dozen or so gang members implicated in a string of shootings.

That's the slight glimmer of positivity.

Here's why I think the district attorney is a creep arguably worse than the gang members:

 One of those charged is a rapper named Tiny Doo.  (His real name is Brian Duncan, but his moniker "Tiny Doo" is more interesting.)

According to the Los Angeles Times, Tiny Doo faces up to 25 years in prison. Why?

As the Times explains it, "Prosecutors say..... Duncan fits the legal definition of a gang member who 'willfully promotes, furthers, assists in any felonious criminal conduct by members of that gang.'"

Oh, Tiny Doo must have provided guns to the gang members so they could commit their crimes?  Or maybe drove them to them to the crime scene? Or told the gang members where they could find their victims to kill?

Um, no.  None of those things. He's clean.

It turns out Tiny Doo released a rap album. It's called "No Safety" and it has a picture of a gun and bullets on the cover.

Oooh! A picture of a scary gun! And bullets! Yup, that supposedly makes Tiny Doo a mass murderer or something.

This rapper, named Tiny Doo, faces a long prison sentence
for rapping about gang violence. First Amendment, Smirst
Amendment, apparently.  

Yeah, I'm sure the album is not my cup of tea, and I'm sure it's not the prosecutor's either. Everybody's a critic.

There's a little known California law that hasn't been challenged yet, that says people can't profit off gang activity. That's fine.

But prosecutors say Tiny Doo is profiting off gang activity because he raps about gang activity, which supposedly helps album sales, which means he's profiting from gang activity.

That is quite the little stretch isn't it, Mr. Prosecutor Man!

But last I checked, the government, under the First Amendment, can't suppress free speech, in this case in the form of a rap album, because somebody who listens to it might subsequently decide to commit a crime.

Oh sure, you can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater, but rapping about gangs and violence? It's distasteful to some of us, but not illegal.

At least it wasn't illegal.

Apparently, though, the prosecutor wants to repeal the First Amendment. By his logic we're all criminals. At least most of us.

This morning, I listened to, and enjoyed the song "I Don't Like Mondays," which is about a school shooting. (Though for the record, I hate and am distressed by real school shootings.)

So should I be arrested for promoting school shootings? Or should the band who sings it, The Boomtown Rats, be prosecuted, even though the song is something like 30 years old?

Maybe we should arrest the members of Guns N' Roses. The rapper 50 Cent is seen holding a gun on his album "Guess Who's Back." Arrest him, too?

Did you watch NCIS on TV this week? There was probably a murder involved in the plot? So are you promoting violence by watching this show?

Tiny Doo's attorney, Brian Watkins, makes the same point, says the L.A. Times.

"If we're trying to criminalize artistic expression, what's next, Brian De Palma and Al Pacino?" Watkins said after visiting his client in jail. 

"Every drug gangster loves 'Scarface.' Does it encourage violence." asked Watkins, a reference to the 1983 movie directed by De Palma and starring Pacino." 

Prosecutors said that they have photos of Tiny Doo with the other gang members. OK. He has lousy friends. Maybe he's a lousy person himself, I don't know. It should be noted that Tiny Doo has no criminal record before this. 

The district attorney wouldn't comment. Probably hiding from the Big, Bad Reporter who wrote the article.

I'm hoping all the publicity building virally about this stupid prosecutor will make him back down. I wonder if this kind of thing goes on elsewhere, though.

I obviously want no harm to come to the district attorney, but I think he is going to come after me, anyway.

After all, I'm criticizing him pretty harshly. So he'll probably want to charge me with hindering a law enforcement official.

All because I'm probably hurting his Widdle Feelings.

On MLK Day Wisconsin Basketball Brothers Almost In Trouble For Having Fun While Black

A happy little newspaper photo got three Wisconsin brothers in trouble because, well, they're basketball players, they're black, so the automatic assumption is they're up to no good.

To the school and police, their hand gestures were gang signs
To everybody involved in basketball, the hand gestures
celebrate a three-pointer.  Photo by Steve
Ottmann, Sheboygan Falls News  

The problem was the way they gesturing in the photo.

Incidents like this, when they hit around the time of MLK Day as this one has, kind of makes me depressed about race relations in the United States.

The Sheboygan Falls News recently ran a feature about the three brothers, Jordan, Juwaun and Jamal Jackson, who are on the local high school basketball team.

It was a light, seemingly noncontroversial story, with a photo of the three teens showing them making the kind of hand gestures professional players, and their fans often make during successful moments on the court.

But these kids are black, you understand. They were making hand gestures, so they had to be making gang signals, said many readers, the school and local police, who began an hardboiled investigation into the matter. Two of the boys were suspended from their next game after the photo appeared in the paper, according to Jim Romenesko's journalism web site 

Never mind that the hand gestures in questions are now a staple, a cliche, really, at many basketball games.

"Gangsters" like U.S. House Speaker John Boehner has made similar gestures while he enjoys ball games. After all, as Think Progress notes, there's been plenty of media attention and several trend stories about the gesture, which celebrates successful three point shots in basketball. 

If anyone at the school or the police department was confused about the gestures in the newspaper photo, it would have been so easy to quietly ask the kidswhat the hand gesture meant, look it up, confirm what they said and go on.

But no, everybody, including the police, which should have known better, went into full bore panic about gangs in Sheboygan Falls. After all, if an uppity black kid makes a gesture for a newspaper story,  no matter how innocent, said black kid will go on to just gang bang and shoot up the whole town, right?

There was a quick reversal after people started pointing out how ridiculous the school and police were being. According to WHBL, the local radio station:

"The suspension was handed down after a school liaison officer noticed the two brothers had made hand gestures that looked like gang symbols in the picture. After Sheboygan Falls Police confirmed the gestures were gang symboos, the school followed their athletic code and suspended the two for the team's game against Plymouth.

Police chief Steve Riffel said their investigation also determined the boys' actions were not intended to be a gesture supporting crime or a certain gang, but rather a gesture made when a shot was made."

The two brothers who had been suspended from the game were allowed to play. But the damage had been done, really.

House Speaker John Boehner does a variation
of the "gang sign" that got the kids in Sheboygan Falls
in trouble. m

Why couldn't the liasson officer and the police done a quiet, easy search at the beginning on this to prove that indeed this was just harmless game signals?

Common sense would dictate the kids probably wouldn't be in a gang if they were that accomplished in school, and wouldn't be dumb enough to do it in a publication that would be seen all over the community.

Yeah, some teens are dumb, but most aren't that dumb.

And how are these three boys supposed to trust the school liaison officer and town police after this?  Apparently, the school and the police always view them with suspicion, so no matter what they do, they can assume the authorities are assuming they are up to no good.

What kind of way is that to enjoy your high school years?

The quotes in the Sheboygan Press newspaper from Sheboygan Falls School Administrator Jean Born sure are rich:

 "This decision that was made here or these students has absolutely nothing, nothing to do with race, she said. "We balance a bunch of factors" when looking at student discipline, Born said. She noted the district's top priority is student safety, and that officials sought "a balanced approach" to the situation.

"You knowk we're challenged all the time with keeping our schools safe," Born said. "Part of our ob is to make sure that everybody that comes here feels safe."

Yep, that's her job. Making sure everyone who goes to the school feel safe. Why not apply that to the Jackson brothers, too. Make them feel safe instead of suggesting they are members of a gang, to make everyone afraid or angry at them. That's not a safe situation for a high school kid, is it?

Meanwhile, Jeff Pederson, the editor of the paper which had the original photos, told Romenesko that he is shaken by the whole incident.

"What has happened with what I still believe is a perfectly fine photo that fit well with the story is disgusting and will stay with me for the rest of my life. I am struggling to understand this entire situation, but I do know that I can't allow the people we photograph to be put up to this very serious level of scrutiny ever again."

"I firmly believe that a fun photo with personality catched the eye and  an even bring a smile to someone's face even if they don't know the people in the photo. That is the kind of photo I have always tried to search for, but obviously things will change with this very ugly event, which should have never been an issue, let alone a national controversy and even a joke to some.

Honestly, that is unacceptable and it will force me to change my approach to make sure that never happens again."

So in other words, Pederson, because he has found that ugly streak in society, will now have to think twice about putting in a fun photo in his paper. Especially if it involves minorities.

It's true, some black kids are scumbags. Just like some white kids are. Asians and everybody else too, have their bad apples.

However, in the minds of some people in our society, if a young black kid is doing something admirable or just fun, he's up to no good unless proven otherwise.

I'm a white guy, so I don't claim to have all the deep insights into race relations.  I do believe, like most Americans do, that we've come a long way from the days of Martin Luther King Jr., whose birthday we're celebrating today.

But as the Jackson brothers in Sheboygan Falls know, we've still got a ways to go.