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dead prez arrested for breathing

Members and supporters of the politically-charged rap group dead prez (dpz), who were arrested Saturday afternoon in Crown Heights, allege the incident was police harassment. Clayton Gavin, a/k/a Sticman, one half of the controversial rap duo, his DJ, Umi Bem Niilampti, and two other associates, Samuel Murrain, a/k/a Ness, and Harris DeJesus, a/k/a D-Don, were in the midst of a photo shoot when they were detained for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, among other charges, after refusing to show identification when queried by police. The cases against all but one of the defendants have already been dismissed.

According to Rosa Clemente, a dpz spokesperson and part of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM), at around 3:30 p.m., the group members were posing for a photographer in front of a Dean Street and Bedford Avenue building when they were approached by two female cops demanding their identification. In response, the group told the officers they were guests of a friend who lived at the address, and asked the reason for the ID request. Clemente says the police persisted, saying, "'What’s the problem, just show us ID,'" and that the rappers asked, "'For what? Why do we have to show you ID? There’s hundreds of people on this block, you ain’t asking them for ID.'"

dead prez claim that after this exchange the officers called for backup, more police arrived and the group was surrounded. Sticman says he repeatedly asked if he was under arrest, was told that he was not, but wasn’t allowed to leave or continue his work. "I was harassed and attacked by the police in my neighborhood," Sticman told the Voice. "I was never told anything about being under arrest. . . . There were no complaints. I wasn’t violating any laws other than the law of being black and being outside."
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(MXGM attorney and dpz co-counsel Kamau Karl) Franklin says his clients were within their rights to refuse to give IDs without being given a reason. "There is no pass law," says Franklin referring to the one-time law in South Africa requiring all blacks to carry state-issued passes to enter urban areas. "They are not required to give ID [when] someone just walks up to them and demands ID, even if it’s a police officer. We have no basis for the initial stop."

Pay attention to that last point, because there is a huge misconception in this country around the need to carry identification. See, kids are taught that it is a good thing to carry proper ID, “just in case” a situation arises in which it is needed.

This feel-good anal behavior is soon reinforced and over-simplified to the point that many, maybe most people, believe that they “must” carry ID on them at all times. I say over-simplified because I think a lot of this false assumption stems from the requirement to carry one’s driver’s license whenever one is behind the wheel of a car.

So, a driver is required to carry ID, in the form of a driver’s license, but that’s where it ends. If you are not suspected of breaking any laws, the police have absolutely no right to demand identification.

Unless you’re a black revolutionary artist, in which case you’re lucky Ashcroft’s fascist minions haven’t treated you to a nice little trip to Miniluv:

The Ministry of Love was the really frightening one. There were no windows in it at all. Winston had never been inside the Ministry of Love, nor within half a kilometre of it. It was a place impossible to enter except on official business, and then only by penetrating through a maze of barbed-wire entanglements, steel doors, and hidden machine-gun nests. Even the streets leading up to its outer barriers were roamed by gorilla-faced guards in black uniforms, armed with jointed truncheons.