Jury finds man facing jail after playing 'F the Police' not guilty
A man facing jail time for blasting the song "F the Police" and allegedly violating Pontiac's noise ordinance was found not guilty by a jury.
That person on the juror (sic) said, 'why am I here? This is a waste of my time,' you know that type of deal, knowing that I'm innocent," James Webb said.
Webb faced a $500 fine and 93 days in county jail after playing NWA's "F the Police" right next to an Oakland County Sheriff's Deputy conducting a traffic stop on someone else.
Michigan driver says deputy ticketed him for noise violation for playing 'F--- the Police'
"You got people standing out here and you're playing f*** the police cause I'm sitting right here. Right? I don't care if it's any other rap song, he's dropping the F-bomb and cursing and swearing, nobody wants to hear that," the officer said.
"The police officer's reasoning was that he said this music was vulgar. And part of the vulgarity was that it used the F word, but we had on the video that the first man the officer had pulled over; the officer is dropping F-bombs with him. So why is it OK for this man to hear the F-word but not other people?" said Nicholas Somberg, who represented Webb in court.
Webb chose not to pay the fine for allegedly violating the noise ordinance and instead chose to take the case to trial. The jury took all of nine minutes to come back with a not guilty verdict.
"It's really sad how much money is spent on fighting something that was a loss from the beginning. It's not like this was close. I mean you could look at it and any prosecutor or lawyer who understands the law and people's rights should've dismissed this," Somberg said.
Someberg took the case pro-bono and Webb won't have to pay any court costs. We asked what message he has for the deputy now that it's all said and done.
"I don't know, just same as the song would say. Sorry. Sorry that you didn't get one over on somebody," he said.
No comment from the Oakland County Sheriff's Office.