Not a Story About Clowns

In 1992, Ice T’s Body Count released a song called “Cop Killer,” which was a protest against police brutality. To clarify the target of his message he even dedicates the song to “every cop that has ever taken advantage of somebody, beat ‘em down or hurt ‘em, because they have long hair, listen to the wrong kind of music, wrong color, whatever they thought was the reason to do it.”

Not surprisingly, this song was not well received by mainstream America. It was described as a “misuse of the First Amendment.”  Both President Bush and Vice-President Quayle weighed in against the song. Charleton Heston addressed the shareholders of Time-Warner, who owned the record company who released the record, in an effort to have them stop distributing the record.

Like the lyrics of the song itself, all of the above forms of speech are protected by the First Amendment. Unfortunately, the opponents of this record went further. These included anonymous death threats. Police in Greensboro, North Carolina told the owner of a local record store that “they would no longer respond to any emergency calls at the store if they continued to sell the album.”  Local municipalities also tried to put pressure on the band as they toured to support the album.

In Los Angeles, Body Count was unable to play the usual venues that a band of it’s type would usually perform. The grapevine was filled with stories that these clubs were warned that future license renewals would be in jeopardy if they booked the band. Therefore, the show was held in an old theatre that would soon be closed.

On the night of the show, the harassment was transferred to the audience. Despite the fact that a good portion of the audience were yuppies who were there for the “event” aspect of the evening and did not even realize that Body Count differed from Ice-T’s rap act, the police presence was indicative of a Hell’s Angel’s convention. Fire marshal's actually lined the stage and after the second song forced the venue to keep the house lights on for the duration of the performance. Stage diving was banned not by the venue but by the fire marshall who promised to stop the show if it occurred even once.

To Ice-T’s credit, he seemed to tune out all of these potential distractions and gave a great performance. More importantly, before performing the final song of the night he warned the audience that a circus was brewing outside the theater and that they should not play into their hands. “Don’t even look at them, don’t give them an excuse.”

There was a huge show of force outside the theater. They were even lined up on the rooftops across the street. However, they were not there to serve and protect or to ensure that people had the right to peaceably assemble. They were there to make a point.

There were also protesters outside the venue. I have been to other protests and the police will always separate two sides of a conflict so as not to let the situation get violent. They did not do so in this case. These protesters had been allowed to gather at the exits to the theatre so that they could shove signs (which would also be prohibited at most protests with the threat of confrontation) into the faces of the audience members as we left. They were also allowed to physically get into our faces to scream there protests at us. All this because the government disagreed with Ice-T’s speech.

_____________________________________________________________

Carl writes a weekly blog for the Northridge Patch.