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Rapper Bobby Shmurda Says He Was Falsely Arrested
By
Miranda Katz
Published Apr 30, 2016
Modified Apr 30, 2016
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By
Miranda Katz
Published Apr 30, 2016
Modified Apr 30, 2016
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Bobby Shmurda, the Brooklyn-born rapper whose January 2014 arrest made headlines, is now fighting the NYPD on another arrest: he says that he was falsely charged when police arrested him in June of 2014 for gun possession.
Shmurda, who's best known for his viral Shmoney Dance, has been in jail for some 16 months now, held on a whopping $2 million bail for charges of conspiracy, reckless endangerment, criminal possession of a weapon, and criminally using drug paraphernalia. According to the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor, Shmurda—whose real name is Ackquille Pollard—is said to have "fired a gun towards a crowd of people outside a barber shop at 1088 Clarkson Avenue on June 2nd, 2014, shattering a glass storefront." He was arrested the following day.
The charge resulting from his June arrest was eventually dismissed, but Shmurda is now suing the city over what he says was a false arrest. He claims that on June 3rd, he was visiting his friend's apartment when police officers arrived, knocked, and, when someone opened the door slightly to see who was there, kicked in the door and searched the apartment without a warrant. The search turned up a gun and drug paraphernalia, neither of which belonged to Shmurda, according to his lawsuit. Nonetheless, he was arrested and charged with criminal possession of a weapon.
Shmurda is arguing that the police didn't have probable cause to search the apartment or arrest him. He specifically names detective Douglas Corso, who's been a defendant in five other similar suits in as many years. The rapper is suing for damages, and says that as a result of Corso and the other officers' actions, he's suffered "severe mental anguish and emotional distress, humiliation, embarrassment, stress and anxiety, loss of self esteem, self-confidence and personal dignity, emotional pain and suffering."
The Daily News notes that Shmurda's lawer, Derek Sells, is married to Mina Malik, the executive director of the Civilian Complaint Review Board—the agency that reviews, among other things, claims of police misconduct. Sells told the tabloid that Shmurda did not file a complaint with the CCRB. In March, the CCRB found that officers entered residences without warrants or consent in 180 reported incidents between 2010 and 2015.
Shmurda is set to appear in court on May 11th to face the charges brought against him in January, 2014. In a recent interview with Vibe, he said that "the cops that locked me up—they're dirty. I've known the cops since I was 11-12 years old...They tried to put guns on me. They tried to do a whole bunch of stuff." In the same interview, he said that "we cannot have Donald Trump as president. I'm going for Hillary."
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