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The best way to win as a black man against white cops:
Don't make it about race.
Also, being in the legal and moral right certainly helps.
This is the story of Afroman, a rapper most known for the hit single "Because I Got High". Then his house was raided by the sheriff's office of Adams County, Ohio, based off of... almost nothing, as far as I can tell.
They damaged his door, gate, and security cameras. They were looking for narcotics smuggling and kidnapping victims, but instead found a few blunts and unused pipes, and filed no charges. The repairs cost $20k, not a single cent of which was paid by the officers, who also kept $400 of his cash.
So Afroman did what anyone would do if the cops came and unjustifiably kicked down his door and paid nothing for it: He made songs making fun of the raid, complete with his own security camera footage of the cops. This led to the production of such classics like "Will You Help Me Repair My Door", "Why You Disconnecting My Video Camera", and "Lemon Pound Cake" (about the officer who was eyeing a rather delectable slice of lemon pound cake sitting on his countertop). And in a sane world, this would have been the end of it, and the raid and associated songs would have faded into obscurity.
So of course, the Adams County Sheriff's Department decided to do the dumbest thing possible: Sue Afroman.
Somehow, the case went to trial, with the deputies unironically arguing -- with a straight face -- that Afroman's videos seriously defamed their character and reputation, enough to cause $4 million in damages. This led to a hilarious examination where a female officer cries on the stand as "Licc'em Low Lisa" plays. Afroman played his defense straight, pointing out that the entire situation was caused by the cops fucking up and raiding his house for basically no reason, and that he has a First Amendment right to criticize and make fun of the police. Also, he was wearing a badass suit covered entirely in the American flag.
The jury sided with Afroman.
A couple culture war takeaways here. First, I think the biggest factor in his success was not playing the race card at all, even though he easily could have. Instead, he stood behind the freedoms that every American has, and demonstrated that this could have happened to anyone, black or white. Every American has the right to not have their privacy invaded or property damaged, and when that right is violated, they have the right to speak freely and mock those who violated their rights. The race card would have only served as a distraction at best and polarized the jury at worst.
Second, this verdict could have only happened in America, where there is a strong legal tradition of freedom of speech. If it had taken place in a European country like Germany, where calling the government "parasites" gets your house raided, he would have lost. Having a jury trial was also very important in this case, because the judge was almost blatantly biased in favor of the plaintiffs. If this case had taken place in a country like the United Kingdom, which is seriously considering scrapping most jury trials, he also would have lost. Turns out, jury trials are there to protect the people from corrupt judges.
The point is that though Americans may be stereotyped as being irrationally fearful of a tyrannical government, this fear is entirely justified, and this case is a good example of it. Or at least a good example of how small town cops abuse their power, which seems to happen an awful lot in small towns across America.
He may have centered the case around corruption and individual liberty, but in the instagram post he said (bolding mine):
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Why are the court exhibits uncropped screencaptures from YouTube? Did the cops think that having Penguinz0 thumbnails about the case in the sidebar would help them?
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I'm surprised not to see anyone mention the most memorable episode from this saga I've seen going around X:
He was kind of stuck there; if he said yes he'd admit into court being a cuck, and if he said no he'd weaken his claim that the songs are to be taken seriously.
If he said yes, then afroman's statement was truthful which is a complete defense to the claim of defamation.
Technically all he had to do was say "no, not to my knowledge".
Its funny to think he had enough of an inkling of doubt as to the truth and thus didn't want to lie on the stand.
I’ve read that the cop in question has a mixed-race teenage daughter, even though he and his wife have been married for almost 30 years. He also testified that he’s known Afroman’s wife for years, so the families have definitely interacted in the past.
The plot gets plottier.
Gotta admit, it would show dedication if in order to ensure he could win a libel case for saying he fucked the cop's wife, he actually fucked the cop's wife.
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18:30 in clip is about when the crying starts. The whole thing is bizarre. They play an Afroman song on YouTube in court. There's a stripper and implied cunnilingus involved. In the actual courtroom, Afroman is wearing an American Flag suit.
This song seems clearly defamatory to me. The video makes it even worse with an actress pretending to be the cop going down on a woman and then acting out having sex with Afroman.
I can only conclude the jury hated cops enough and got caught up enough in the bogusness of the search warrant that i
Or... everyone is just media literate enough now to find all of this funny? Rural Ohio juror grandmas watching the three strippers laying on his counter with their legs up, then the video of her actress having sex with him? "Yep, seems like non-defamatory free speech".
I'm pretty sure if I tried flirting with a barista, she shut me down, and I took revenge by hiring an actress that looked like her and then created a music video depicting her as being mega slutty and then myself having hate sex with her and her loving it and blasted it to millions of people I'd be found guilty of defamation. The jury is only okay with this because she was a cop involved in a bogus search of his house and not a barista.
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In trying to game out the Deputies' plan here, I can only assume they just thought they'd found a target with potentially deep pockets and who would just settle with them for a high six figures or something.
But they found a guy disgreeable enough to stick it out and who was a very sympathetic figure in the whole thing. And as noted, didn't burn goodwill by trying to turn it into a racial animosity moment. Which would have been a believable narrative here.
"Corrupt Cops against the First Amendment and the American Spirit" is a VASTLY more appealing framing than "racist white cops vs. downtrodden black rapper."
And showing up for the trial in American flag suit and sunglasses combo (with a perfectly coiffed afro on top) is a serious masterstroke.
I'm actually somewhat surprised the Judge let that fly, but then, the First Amendment ALSO protects the right to wear such things in court.
And the thing is, the cops in question actually had the makings of a valid case. Afroman made very specific, defamatory claims using the clear real names and likenesses of the parties he targetted. He did so intending, very specifically, to cause them reputational harm. If they were true claims, then he's very much in the clear. But surely some of those claims were just blatantly false. That's how rap beefs work, you make certain claims and boasts that are exaggerated or false but provocative to diminish the opponent's status.
It wasn't a frivolous lawsuit, just a stupid one.
I don't know how large the reputational harms could have been in money terms. Its just not a good look to get on the stand and play some goofy-looking music video by a dude whose house you did in fact raid, and pretend you're the one with the emotional trauma from this situation.
Indeed; I can easily see how that suit could win on its own merit. But the cops did a severe injustice to Afroman and in trying to get justice for a much less severe retaliation they gave a jury the power to make things right.
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Rappers seem like a very bad target for this sort of extortion . Their audience absolutely does not care about them mocking cops (one might even say it's expected), so they suffer no reputational damage from refusing to settle. You might actually make them more money.
Also, Afroman doesn't seem that rich.
I vaguely remember him having a commercial that ran on late-night 2000s TV, hawking his CD with a really low budget ad. It ran alongside that guy in the crazy suit ranting about how to get free money from the government. So yeah, I'm not surprised that he's not super rich... actually I'm kind of impressed that it actually launched a successful career for him, in the days before youtube or spotify.
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From the CCTV videos, he has a decent amount of assets to seize to satisfy a judgment.
Agreed on the lack of reputational damage if he settled, though. And he was obviously savvy enough to see that he could raise his profile if he played this one to the hilt.
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It wasn't frivolous, in the sense that I understand why the judge agreed to let a jury hear the case, but it was always going to be a high bar to clear. As you say:
True, but these claims were made in the context of, as you put it, a goofy music video. The real question was whether a normal person listening to the lyrics would treat them as statements of fact. Officer Lisa may have to deal with ridicule about her supposed love for cunnilingus, but I doubt anyone making those jokes seriously believes that she licked every pussy in town. It's the Falwell case all over again. It didn't help when the defense called family members of the officers to the stand and asked them if they took similar claims made in other rap songs seriously.
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Good ol civil asset forfeiture, allowing cops to just steal from innocent people without any evidence for decades.
Cops will steal your money, they'll steal your RV, they'll steal the computers at your computer shop, they'll steal the funds for your medical clinic, they'll steal a teen's phone and sell it at one of those kiosks, they'll steal your horses even.
Law enforcement are thieves, because of course they are when you not only allow the theft but incentivize it by allowing them or the departments to keep the shit they take. Luckily many of those cases do eventually get ruled against, but "eventually you might get your money that was stolen back after paying a lot to fight in court" is a bit of a cold comfort. And that's not even guaranteed.
It wasn't civil asset forfeiture. It was an evidentiary seizure pursuant to a lawfully issued warrant.
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I have a lot of nostalgia for my parents' politics, but in retrospect their love of civil asset forfeiture, clearly sold to them through conservative outlets as part of the war on drugs package, was a weird and embarrassing outlier. They were generally quite fond of constitutional and liberal principles, but it's like they didn't notice or didn't care in this case that the legal mechanism they were celebrating was a blatant endrun around them. They just thought it was based that wealth was flowing directly and freely from organized crime to law enforcement.
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Based Afroman. He should file a civil suit for them to compensate him for the damage to his property.
Qualified immunity -- if there wasn't specific precedent saying the cops couldn't damage specifically his property in exactly the way it was damaged on the date and time it was damaged, the cops are immune.
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Ha! Sounds like a real-life case of rap album confessions! No real evidence but... isn't it safe to assume that the guy who made "because I got high" was probably in posession of narcotics?
And to add a wildly unpredictable element. Usually biased towards charismatic, famous people.
He actually jokes about that in one of the songs he made. At one point the song goes "Why does the warrant say narcotics and - ok, I know about the narcotics (laugh) but why the kidnapping?".
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He references that in "Will You Help Me Repair My Door":
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To assume that he smokes weed? Of course, though it's legal in Ohio. To assume that he smuggled drugs? That requires more evidence. Unfortunately, there hasn't been much of an investigation into why the Adams County Sheriff's Office so erroneously believed that he smuggled drugs or kidnapped people. The warrant even said he has a basement dungeon (the house doesn't have a basement at all).
What I don't get is: what is the purpose of having a judge sign the warrant if you do not name and shame judges for signing a bad warrant? If a warrant bears a judge's signature, then the buck stopped with them, and in the default case they deserve blame for it.
Of course, they could pass the blame by pointing out that given the evidence in the warrant application, it seemed justified. But then they need to throw someone else under the bus. "Actually, we had a witness who had made a sworn statement about kidnapping victims in a basement dungeon, and he was just found guilty of perjury and got a year of prison for that" would in fact absolve the other actors of most blame. Bonus points if they go after a cop for making a false sworn statement.
But if they say "Oopsy daisy, sometimes a warrant I sign is just bad, shit happens, nobody is really to blame for that" then you might as well replace them with a rock saying 'the warrant is probably fine'.
I mean, there are probably oops cases -- if a guy is caught on camera with a blood-dripping roll of carpet, that might justify a warrant for suspicion of murder, and if it later turns out that he merely buried his dog killed in a traffic accident then you say oops and move on. But in that case it would be easy enough to point out that of the last ten cases of blood-dripping carpet rolls, eight turned out to be homicides, and that it is better to raid one innocent than to let four murderers go free.
This is more or less the actual process. Even on the very rare occasions that a warrant is successfully attacked after the fact, nothing happens to the judge.
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That is what is fascinating. They got the wrong address and the real drug-smuggling kidnapper rap star was someone else? An anonymous tip? Did Afroman have a bad breakup or is in a beef with another rap star? The mind boggles.
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Only since 2023. His song came out in 2000, so he's had a long career of signing songs about how he breaks felony drug laws. edit: also still illegal at the federal level, and a felony if he had more than 3 ounces, sold it to anyone, or moved it across state lines.
I'm pretty sure he's confessed to selling drugs in multiple songs from my familiarity with his canon.
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Don’t other countries have rules that actually ban police raiding your house at 2am for no reason?
Wasn't there an article going around recently about German police knocking on doors at 5AM for online meme posts that fell a bit short of the letter of German criminal law?
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Not that it makes it any better, but it seems like his house was raided during daylight hours. And other countries still do house raids.
I think the problem here was a judge rubber-stamping the warrant and not scrutinizing the evidence closely. (Some news sources have said it was an informant. Who was this informant, exactly, and how did they find out that Afroman allegedly trafficked narcotics and kidnapping victims?) However, to my knowledge, other countries don't have rules for investigating when the justice system harms the people in a case like this, and e.g. cleaning house on judges who rubber-stamp warrants.
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Can we cite this as an example if the Streisand Effect too?
However if this were an earlier time when false allegations of homosexuality was considered defamation per se, might 'Licc'em Low Lisa' have been defamatory?
The intersection between a fruitless and perhaps poorly considered search and alleged lesbianism and tendency towards cunnulingus is not apparent to me.
I haven't listened to the song, but I would guess that yes, in an earlier time, implying that someone is a homosexual would be considered defamatory.
The trend in the United States is towards free speech, which I basically agree with but obviously this is not without costs.
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Afroman is not seriously alleging that "Licc'em Low Lisa" does, in fact, licc 'em low. He is making a joke. This is the same guy who sings comedic songs about smoking weed.
This one doesn't land as well as "Lemon Pound Cake" or "Will You Help Me Repair My Door." In those tracks, the nexus between police conduct during the raid and his ridicule is apparent and obvious.
Only two of five verses even reference the raid or her work as a sheriff. The rest is built entirely on her appearance and his assumptions about her sexuality. When you strip away the production and the comedic framing, the song is basically: "A female deputy was involved in raiding my house, she has a deep voice, therefore she must be secretly a man / secretly gay", then an entire track of sexual ridicule built on that premise.
The spoken deposition section actually makes it worse. You can hear Lisa Phillips describing real emotional harm, being harassed at work, being called slurs in public, having to leave shifts because of it, having to defend that she doesn't have a penis. Afroman's apology in that same section is telling: "I didn't know you was a biological lady", revealing the whole thing was rooted in assumptions about her gender and body based on her voice.
There's no allegation of actual misconduct by her specifically. The grievance is about the raid itself, and the "revenge" he chose was to target the most visibly gender-nonconforming officer on the scene.
His other tracks attempt to humorously allege actual deficiencies in police conduct. This one doesn't critique policing or say anything meaningful about the raid. It punches entirely at someone's appearance and perceived sexuality.
In other words: it's a hip-hop diss track.
Not really. Common threads across that genre is that the ridicule connects to something real. Artistic credibility, business betrayals, hypocrisy, actual conduct. The punchlines land because they're built on a foundation the audience recognizes as legitimate.
Even in a genre where personal attacks are an art form, the best diss tracks target what someone did, not just what they look like. Afroman knows how to do that, his other raid tracks prove it. He just didn't do it here.
The biggest recent beef (that reached the Super Bowl) had entirely unsubstantiated accusations of paedophilia and domestic abuse. And that was just the worst stuff
I used to watch pure battle rap (which has diverged into its own sport as opposed to a proving ground for new rappers). Yes, the most memorable and devastating moments involve something true. Especially if it's unknown.
But lying is also acceptable if it's funny and well-crafted.
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