An off-duty Greensboro,
N.C., police officer has been cleared of any wrong doing after an altercation
with rapper The Game in a shopping mall last year.
Officers said The
Game, born Jayceon Taylor, was in the mall on Oct. 28 wearing a Halloween mask.
He refused repeated
requests by mall security to remove the mask and leave the mall, police said.
Three off-duty Greensboro Police Department officers were called in for support.
As the altercation
escalated, one officer pepper-sprayed Game and eight associates who surrounded
the officer as he attempted to arrest the rapper.
Game denied the
charges minutes after the fracas ensued.
"They thought
I was Rodney King," Game said. "I would play the racial card but we’ve
done that too much. I’m here for the concert and signing a little girl’s autograph
got me arrested."
The Internal Affairs
division of the Greensboro Police Department vindicated the officer in question,
who was not named due to state privacy laws.
Game was in the
area to perform as part of Winston-Salem State University’s 2005 Homecoming.
The incident was
filmed, widely rebroadcast on the Internet and is included in Game’s Stop
Snitchin/Stop Lyin DVD.
Game never returned
police requests to be interviewed and the rapper missed a March 28 court date
for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
The rapper is now
a wanted man in North Carolina.
Authorities have
issued Game an arrest warrant for missing a March 28 court date to answer the
charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.