Free Minds & Free Markets
When Laz Tha Boy threatens to murder someone with an AK-47, it
may seem scary. He proudly mimes shooting
handguns towards the camera in his videos and promises to "leave a
… face burgundy," when he is finished killing. But he says, it's an
Deandre Mitchell is from Richmond, Calif., and Laz Tha Boy is
his hip-hop rap music persona. Although he says he writes many
different types of rap music, he has found local success in the
Northern California area as a gangsta rapper.
"It was just a way for me to express myself and be able to show
the world that I [could] do something else. Try to give the people
around me the motivation to say we could come from nothing," said
Mitchell to Reason TV behind a pane of glass at the Martinez
Detention Facility in Martinez, California.
Three of Mitchell's rap videos (,
and ) became evidence used against him in a 2012 grand
jury proceeding in which he was indicted on two counts of attempted
murder, stemming from
His case is like a lot of
other cases springing up around the United States featuring
aspiring rappers who are having their violent rap lyrics used
against them. But nowhere is this phenomenon more prevalent than in
one of gangster rap music's birthplace, California, where
prosecutors aggressively prosecute gangs.
"It's supposed to be freedom of speech. So when I use my freedom
of speech and voice my opinion then you all turn around and try and
use it against me like this is who I am as a person," says
Even though the videos were made years earlier and didn't
include specific references to the the shootings at
the heart of the indictment, Satish Jallepalli, a prosecutor with
the Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office, said the videos
illustrate Mitchell had the mindset to commit such crimes and did
so to benefit Deep C, a criminal street gang in Richmond.
"At the end of the day, yes a person has a First Amendment right
to speak, but when they they commit a crime, sometimes what they
say will end up being used against them," says Jallepalli.
Since a grand jury proceeding is secret the only way we can
understand what was presented is through transcripts of the
proceeding (). In the grand jury proceeding Jallepalli
pointed to Mitchell's violent references to murder and AK-47s with
lyrics like, "If I see him I'm gonna murk em" and "When that K-ter
starts sparking it get to jumpin but I'm a grip em." This was
supposed to illustrate Mitchell's character but Jallepalli did not
provide context for the lyrics as artistic convention.
"The term murk, rappers use all of the time," says ,
an associate professor of criminology, law and society at the
University of California, Irvine. "If it's not murk, it's 'I'm
gonna smoke him', 'I'm going to pop a cap in him', 'I'm going to
blaze him'." Kurbin is the co-author of the paper
details the history and scope of rap music used in criminal
proceedings. She says prosecutors end up using rap lyrics and
videos as evidence because they know the scary effect they will
have on jurors.
"If you think about who is serving in our jury system in the
United States, it's typically older, higher socioeconomic status,
typically white. They often don't have the proper context for
understanding rap music," says Kubrin.
In addition to word play, metaphor, and inverting meaning,
rappers throughout hip-hop's history from Snoop Dogg to Eminem have
fashioned characters as the vehicle for their violent lyrics.
"Deandre is the family man, I have two kids and everything. But
when I do music, I build my character to be Laz Tha Boy," says
Mitchell. "If you get around me and really understand me and see
what is going on you see really it's just an image, it's not who I
Mitchell's lawyer,
John Hamasaki, says the use of these rap videos and lyrics have a
prejudicial effect on the young black males that make up the
majority of these types of cases. "I think that the effect that it
has on jurors [...] perpetuates certain myths and stereotypes that
are portrayed by the news media of young African American males
being involved in criminal activity," says Hamasaki.
Jallepalli, disagrees saying, "The overwhelming majority of
victims of gun violence in gang related cases often tend to be
young minorities, whether African American or Hispanic."
Kubrin points out that this tactic of using rap lyrics in
criminal proceedings has been going on since the 1990s but there
has been a rise in their use lately because prosecutors have shared
how successful the tactic can be with each other. Back in
2004, Alan Jackson, a former gang prosecutor in Los Angeles, wrote
saying "through photographs, letters, notes, and even music lyrics,
prosecutors can invade and exploit the defendant's true
personality."
"You have to find a way to transport the jury to those dark
streets and back alleyways where the crimes occur and the criminals
ply their trade," says Jackson but offers the caveat that a
prosecution should never solely be built on rap music
lyrics—traditional evidence must accompany it.
Hamasaki says the use of these rap videos and lyrics in the
Mitchell indictment may have blinded jurors from looking at the
lack of physical evidence presented. In fact, the eyewitness
testimony of the victim who said Mitchell was involved in both
attempts on his life ended up to be based on street rumors.
While the victim told grand jurors that he saw Mitchell at both
shootings, he also told Antioch police in a taped interview that
what he knew was based on rumors he had heard around Richmond
(). He signed a declaration in August
2014, saying "I never saw Deandre Mitchell during either of the
shootings" and my previous statements about Mitchell were just
"based on rumors I had heard in Richmond," ().
Written and produced by Paul Detrick. Shot by Detrick, Tracy
Oppenheimer and Zach Weissmuller. Associate Producer Will Neff.
Music by Anitek, Robin Grey and Ben Von Wildenhaus.
Scroll below for downloadable versions. Subscribe
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goes live.
Paul Detrick is a reporter and video producer at Reason TV.
Follow Paul Detrick on
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Michael Malicewe have a laundry in the top left corner of the camping spot,and in the middle of the camping spot,there is a big paddling pool,the recycling centre is in the lower right corner of the camping spot._百度作业帮
we have a laundry in the top left corner of the camping spot,and in the middle of the camping spot,there is a big paddling pool,the recycling centre is in the lower right corner of the camping spot.
我们在露营点的顶部左上角有个洗衣处,在露营点中部,有一个很大的戏水池,回收中心是在露营点右下角.
我们有一个洗衣在左上角露营用的点,而中间露营用的点,有一个很大的划水池,循环中心在右下角的露营地点。Could a few of us get some help with an overwhelmingly big idea?
We call it the Co-opernation.
We could also use help naming things. | A conversation
Madison, WI
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This conversation is closed.
Could a few of us get some help with an overwhelmingly big idea?
We call it the Co-opernation.
We could also use help naming things.
My beloved and I would often get frustrated watching TED talks, seeing all these lovely, brilliant ideas that we were afraid would never happen in the real world, even though they made more sense than what we saw around us.
When she passed away, a few of us started working on an idea she inspired.
The idea was to stop fighting AGAINST anything and to simply use every single tool at our disposal to make a better place for the people we loved.
We looked in a lot of right places and even more wrong ones, focused on seeing tools as what they were rather than what they were used for, and a strange question presented itself.
Would it be possible to take the framework of a corporation, like a Valve or Mondragon, insert a whole bunch of other people's amazing ideas and basically, turn corporate campuses into charter cities?
Could we free people to simply help other people and remove most of the worries society has created? If we do this right could we hire anybody who wants to be a good person and contribute to the greater good and instantly free them from the current messes we're in?
So, we found our 'yes' answer pretty early (mostly standing on the shoulders of giants who hate each other), but it was a scary revolutionary confrontational thing and somehow that just felt WRONG.
So we dedicated ourselves to making it gentle, harmless, hilarious, and non-threatening, and we're pretty much there.
And now we need help!
We're shy, but since TED really is the biggest source we have, we want to start here.
Our hope is to get some help organizing us, getting this idea out there and into some better hands so it can grow and get even better, then we can hopefully crowdsource a mellow revolution.
If anybody could point us in the right direction it'd be great!
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