Fla. Rapper Jailed For Anti-Cop Lyrics

"He de-stressed with music" - which included writing a song about killing policemen, not necessarily the most often recommended stress reliever, but hey...

By Blurt Staff

Shades of Ice-T, Body Count and "Cop Killer." What, is it the early ‘90s here in America all over again?

Florida's Antavio Johnson is in prison for two years for writing and recording a song that concerned violence against policemen. According to a report in the Orlando Sentinel, the Florida rapper's "Kill A Cop" was posted to a MySpace page in February, and after about two weeks a Polk County gang detective came across it and launched an investigation.

Apparently Johnson was already in jail at the time for a probation violation, and in June he subsequently pleaded no contest to "two counts of corruption by threat of public servant" and received two years from the judge.

In the article Johnson's older brother Gerald claimed that Antavio had originally written the song as a teenager when he felt harassed by police (in the tune, he calls out certain officers and threatens to shoot them), but while its content is "life-based" it was "not advocating" killing police and that it was "never supposed to be public."

Memo to Johnson: MySpace is, er, a public venue. The owner of the record label Hood Certified Entertainment, upon whose MySpace page the song was posted, added that Johnson isn't a violent person. "If someone wants to de-stress, they go out for a run, they paint a picture, they write in a journal. He de-stressed with music."

At any rate, the ACLU has expressed interest in the case while not intervening yet, and the article quotes a First Amendment lawyer who questions the initial charge and subsequent conviction.

"Wanting to kill cops is not a prosecutable offense," attorney Larry Walters said, adding that the lyrics made conditional threats and were not made directly to the officers named. "Even if this would cross the line, this is a song. We live in a free country."