According to stereogum.com in August of last year police allegedly raided the southern Ohio home of artist Afroman, who is best known for the smash hit “Because I Got High.”
Afroman’s wife allegedly filmed the raid, which was also allegedly captured on the rapper’s security cameras. Then Afroman allegedly used images from the raid on merchandise and in music videos.
Last March most of the Adams Country sheriff’s deputies and sergeants allegedly sued Afroman for allegedly using their images and now, American Civil Liberties Union have come to Afroman’s defense.
On the amicus brief filed yesterday on Afroman’s behalf, the ACLU states, “The First Amendment protects the right of people to criticize government actors, including police officers, especially on matters of public concern.” The brief continues below the article.
“This case is a classic entry into the SLAPP suit genre: a meritless effort to use a lawsuit to silence criticism. Plaintiffs are a group of law enforcement officers who executed what appears to have been a highly destructive and ultimately fruitless search of a popular musician’s home. Now they find themselves at the receiving end of his mockery and outrage, expressed through a series of music videos about the search, as well as spinoff merchandise and social media commentary.
They ask this Court not only to award them damages, but to order him to stop speaking about them. At the granular level, the Complaint is an attempt to shoehorn the facts into a series of torts meant for purposes other than Plaintiffs’, and it fails simply because it does not provide allegations that could fulfill the requisite elements of any claim. Conceptually, their allegations run afoul of a much deeper principle: There is nothing the First Amendment protects more jealously than criticism of public officials on a matter of public concern.”
Afroman told NPR he is allegedly considering making an album called Lemon Pound Cake Part 2 with a song about each officer to “see how good I could humiliate them.”
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