WATCH: Singer At Ex-Cop Charity Dinner Mocks ‘Dead, Dead Michael Brown’

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

A video obtained by TMZ showed a party last week in Glendale, Calif. reportedly attended by retired police officers watching a singer perform a racist song mocking and celebrating the death of Michael Brown.

The video, published early Tuesday morning, showed a singer ridiculing Brown, the unarmed black teenager who was killed by white Ferguson, Mo. police officer Darren Wilson in August.

The man sang following lyrics, to the tune of “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown,” as a room full of people at a charity dinner, held at an Elks Lodge, looked on:

Michael Brown learned a lesson about a messin’
With a badass policeman

And he’s bad, bad Michael Brown
Baddest thug in the whole damn town
Badder than old King Kong
Meaner than a junkyard dog

Two men took to fightin’
And Michael punched in through the door
And Michael looked like some old Swiss cheese
His brain was splattered on the floor

And he’s dead, dead Michael Brown
Deadest man in the whole damn town
His whole life’s long gone
Deader than a roadkill dog

The singer was reportedly Gary Fishell, a former private investigator. He performed the song to an audience of cops because he thought they “would get a kick out of it,” his lawyer told TMZ.

“He’s a goofball who writes funny songs,” the lawyer told the site. He also stated that his client now understands the song was “off color and in poor taste.”

The dinner was put together by retired Los Angeles Police Department officer Joe Myers for 50 or 60 people, about half of whom were retired cops, the site reported.

The dinner was reportedly not an Elks Club event. “It’s deplorable and inappropriate the Lodge will take disciplinary action against [Fishell] and possibly the people who organized this event,” a trustee told TMZ.

Watch the video below:

h/t Raw Story

Latest Livewire

Notable Replies

  1. Meanwhile everyone is smug and certain citizens of other nations suffer indignities unique to despotic regimes. If a Muslim sang such a song at a mosque anywhere in the U.S., tailored to mock the death of a beheaded journalist, the condemnation would be universal, loud and relentless across all media platforms. You couldn’t walk far enough into the wilderness to avoid hearing it rehashed nightly.

  2. Right. So disregarding where your opinion stands on Darren Wilson, Michael Brown, or the Grand Jury decision, this young man is still dead. And he didn’t die 100 years ago, where it would be gallows humor. This man’s family just buried him, they just spent their first Thanksgiving, and soon to be Christmas without him. Would the singer find it amusing if someone in his family died tomorrow, and people spent Valentine’s day mocking their death? Also, what the hells’ the matter with this guy that he just understands now this was in poor taste?

  3. No difference between this and Samuel l Jackson rap, or all the other rap songs about cops.

  4. So there’s no difference between a random civilian rapping about cops, and cops–with authority to arrest and shoot-to-kill–singing about civilians murdered by cops?

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

102 more replies

Participants

Avatar for lychnus_diogenes Avatar for richardinjax Avatar for jw1 Avatar for silas1898 Avatar for pickwick Avatar for leftflank Avatar for chammy Avatar for trippin Avatar for mrcomments Avatar for sniffit Avatar for jjrothery Avatar for maxaroo Avatar for 538liberal Avatar for dickweed Avatar for sweetdee Avatar for kuvasz Avatar for dnl Avatar for thunderclapnewman Avatar for ltmcdies Avatar for stevieD Avatar for wendixie Avatar for jalus Avatar for an_american Avatar for FallOfRomePartTwo

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: