Ice-T Breaks Silence on New York Arrest

Ice-T has responded to his arrest on Wednesday morning, implying that law enforcement went overboard on him.

Ice-T was arrested in New York City on Wednesday morning for allegedly evading a toll. Port Authority took him into custody when his E-ZPass did not register at the George Washington Bridge. The rapper allegedly did not notice and continued driving. When police pulled him over, they determined that his McLaren sports car was not registered, though this was still a ticket-worthy offense, according to TMZ.

“Cops went a little Extra,” Ice-T wrote. “Coulda just wrote a ticket. In and out… Moovin.”

The rapper-turned-actor just recently shipped his car from California to his home in New York, likely resulting in the registration mix-up. He assured police that he had an E-ZPass, but he had not moved it into his McLaren yet, and it had slipped his mind. Police released him before long, and he went straight to work on the set of Law & Order: SVU.

Ice-T’s followers replied with condolences for his run-in with the law. A few joked that the real crime was the $15 toll on the Washington Bridge, while others said that Ice-T should be exempt from arrest as a member of the “elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit.”

“Wow, I’m glad they’re cracking down on the hardened criminals like toll evaders,” one person joked.

“They were probably trying to get a reaction for the cameras,” added another. “Wouldn’t put it past some of them now. It’s shameful.”

“They’re still pissed off at you about that Body Count track from almost 30 years ago,” quipped a third.

Before he played a cop on TV, Ice-T had a lot to say about them in his previous career as a rapper. He was the founder of the heavy metal band Body Count in the 1990s. The band got into some trouble when their debut album included a song titled, “Cop Killer.”

“Cop killer, better you than me / cop killer, f— police brutality,” Ice-T rapped in the chorus. “Cop killer, I know your family’s grieving, f— them! / Cop killer, but tonight we get even.”

He later defended the song as a simple artistic expression with no political motive. He compared it to David Bowie’s song, “Space Oddity,” saying “if you believe that I’m a cop killer, you believe David Bowie is an astronaut.”

“I’m singing in the first person as a character who is fed up with police brutality,” he said. “I ain’t never killed no cop. I felt like it a lot of times. But I never did it.”