Of all the heinous crimes that we've ever heard of, B-list rapper The Game has gone and trumped them all by – get this – apparently telling a taxi driver he was a policeman and making him drive through some red lights, the law-breaking bastard.
Now, it's probably just a coincidence that The Game had a new album released last week. At least we hope it's a coincidence, because if The Game planned to boost his notoriety and presence in the album charts by somehow convincing a New York taxi driver that – despite his tattooed face and gang of burly hangers-on – he was a police officer and it was very important that he ran a few red lights, then we may just be looking at one of the world's most genuinely inept, pansy-faced publicity stunts the world has ever known.
When you think of hip-hop stars getting into trouble, to tend to think of fairly serious scenarios like Busta Rhymes' bodyguard being shot dead or, to a lesser extent Snoop Dogg getting banned from Britain then charged with trying to carry a huge weapon onto a plane and then arrested again for having drugs and guns on him. Serious stuff, because hip-hop is a serious art from.
Although someone should probably tell that to The Game, because The Game keeps getting arrested for just about the ponciest little things possible. Last year The Game was arrested for wearing a Halloween mask at Halloween and signing some autographs. It was a bust so completely traumatic that the arresting officers are now suing The Game because he hurt their feelings. This arrest can't have done The Game's reputation much good – nobody wants to be known as the spooky Halloween rapper – but maybe The Game's new arrest will boost things a little.
Or at least it would if it hadn't have been equally as weedy as The Game's previous bust; it's being claimed that The Game, after performing for the David Letterman show, got in a taxi and told the driver he was an undercover cop, and that the driver should speed and run all of the red lights he encountered. The police noticed and, after 13 blocks, pulled the taxi over and took The Game into custody where he was issued a ticket for impersonating a police officer. And this has prompted The Game's lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman to launch into one of the finest examples of street legal talk we've ever come across:
"It's common knowledge, at least in the hip-hop community, that there's a hip-hop task force. Game's had the same six, eight, ten, twelve people following him since he got to New York. They basically escorted him to the Letterman taping, and they were there when they got out. They were literally up his ass from when he was here. They say that he flashed a badge, yet, where's the badge? They didn't find one and the poor guy has to sit in a holding cell while his Letterman appearance is playing on TV. The whole thing's a complete joke to harass the guy. His case is going to be 100 percent dismissed, or it's going to be very punishing trial for the D.A.'s office."
Regardless of how guilty or not guilty The Game may be of impersonating a police officer, perhaps he should try and find himself a lawyer that knows the difference between 'literally' and 'virtually'. Unless, of course, The Game really did have policemen literally up his ass, in which case shouldn't that be the story here instead?
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