By Jonathan D. Jones
News & Record
Copyright 2006 News & Record (Greensboro, NC)
All Rights Reserved
GREENSBORO - Five police officers involved in the arrest of Jayceon “The Game” Taylor filed a defamation suit against the rapper this week.
The officers - Hien Nguyen, Matthew Brown, Ryan Childrey, Romaine Watkins and David Gregory - are claiming they were libeled, slandered and had their images misappropriated by Taylor and several of his business associates in a lawsuit filed at the Guilford County Courthouse.
The suit stems from comments Taylor made to a WFMY reporter after his arrest last year and the distribution of a DVD that includes video of the officers during the arrest. Portions of the video are available on YouTube, a video-sharing Web site that is also named as a defendant in the suit.
Taylor was arrested Oct. 28, 2005, at Four Seasons Town Centre a few hours before he was scheduled to give a concert in Winston-Salem. Taylor and his entourage had been asked to leave the mall by security guards who said they were causing a disturbance.
When police asked the men to leave, they refused and a crowd formed in the middle of the mall. Watkins used pepper spray against the crowd after several men surrounded the police officers. Taylor and a bodyguard were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
A member of Taylor’s entourage filmed the encounter and the video is widely available on the Internet. It also is referenced in the marketing of Taylor’s DVD, “Stop Snitching/Stop Lying.” A Web site promoting the DVD claims it shows Taylor “being wrongfully arrested and brutalized by the police in North Carolina.”
The lawsuit also takes issue with comments Taylor made to the television station after he was released from jail. Taylor compared his treatment to that of Rodney King and claimed he was arrested for signing autographs, according to the suit. The officers said that proper procedures were followed in Taylor’s arrest.
An internal police investigation cleared Watkins of wrongdoing for use of the pepper spray.
The officers are seeking more than $10,000 in damages each, and the lawsuit claims that one officer lost $7,500 in off-duty pay because he was afraid of returning to work at the mall after the incident.
Taylor could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Two of the other men named in the lawsuit, who also work for Taylor’s label, Black Wall Street Records, did not return messages. A representative of YouTube did not return a message.