HIP-HOP

Rappers take the rap

By Sam Pfeifle

“Winter, fall, summer, or spring season,

it’s just the same thing.

PPD will leave you bleedin’.

They’re like the worst gang,

and it ain’t never gonna change.”

-Poverty, in the song “Welcome to the State of Maine”

Poverty’s low opinion of Portland’s police force is unlikely to improve after the arrest last week of two of Portland’s most visible rappers.

Poverty, (aka Tommy Ferris)(real name: Tommy Abate) was arrested while in the middle of a performance the night of August 11 at the Station on charges of domestic abuse while Bread (real first name: Joe), a member of kNow Complex, was arrested for an outstanding operating after suspension fine on August 13.

According to Poverty, he was accused of pushing his ex-girlfriend who was present the night of the show. The woman, who could not be reached for this story, became irate, says Poverty, when he danced on-stage with another girl. “She was screaming from the back of the club saying she was going to beat the girl up,” he says. The woman, whom Poverty says he did not push, was eventually ejected from the club on St. John Street.

Poverty’s story is backed up by his manager, George Sullivan (aka Navillus) also of kNow Complex. “The girl was acting like a lunatic,” says Sullivan. “Tommy never pushed her. He wasn’t even ever alone with her.”

During his second set, Poverty was approached from offstage by two police officers. He left the stage to meet the cops who eventually took him outside and told him his ex-girlfriend had accused him of assault and arrested him.

According to Lieutenant Joseph Loughlin of the Portland Police Department, the woman called the police from the Greyhound bus station pay phone, and her story was corroborated by several witnesses. If an officer “is led by fact and circumstances to believe” that there is abuse, says Loughlin, he must, under Maine law, arrest the suspect with or without a warrant.

However, according to Poverty, the arresting officer said to him that the woman’s account “didn’t sound like the truth.”

It may seem strange that Poverty could be arrested for domestic abuse when the person he supposedly abused was his ex-girlfriend, the two were never married, and they never had a kid together. However, according to Maine law, assault becomes domestic abuse if it is perpetrated against a “family or household member” including “individuals presently or formerly living together and individuals who are or were sexual partners.”

According to Poverty, after he was in the squad car, the police had a few choice words for him. As related by Poverty, the conversation went like this:

Cop: “So, you’re Poverty, the big celebrity. Where can I get your CD, Poverty?”

Poverty: “You can get it at any store.”

Cop: “Didn’t you do ‘Welcome to the State of Maine?’ There’s a lot of stuff about cops on that song.”

Poverty: “Yeah that’s why kids like it.”

Poverty spent the night in jail before he was bailed out by friends.

Just two days later, on August 13, Bread was riding in a car driven by Moshe, also of kNow Complex. As they pulled out of the Union Gas station on Commercial Street, an officer, also at the station, began to follow them.

Though he did not pull them over, he followed the pair onto Fore Street and approached their car after they parked.

According to Bread, the officer said he did not want to “bust their balls” but Bread looked alarmingly like a man who was supposed to be incarcerated. The officer took their IDs and went back to his car. When he returned, he informed Bread that their was a bench warrant for his arrest for an outstanding operating after suspension fine.

Loughlin says this type of police action is called a field interrogation leading to an arrest and it is quite common. The police often stop people who fit the descriptions of suspects (though Bread’s look-alike was in jail, so it is curious why this officer stopped him). If the person happens to have a warrant out for their arrest, as Bread did, the officer has no choice but to arrest.

Once in jail, the police took Bread’s fingerprints, discovered that he was indeed Bread and not an escaped fugitive. He was soon after released on $160 bail.

—Noah Bruce