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Cop Killer (song)
"Cop Killer" is a song by American heavy metal band Body Count. Released on the group's 1992 self-titled debut album. The song's lyrics about "cop killing" were criticized by President of the United States George H. W. Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle. Ice-T has called "Cop Killer" a "protest record". He eventually recalled the album and rereleased it without the song.
Ice-T, who wrote the song's lyrics, referred to "Cop Killer" as a "protest record", stating that the song is "[sung] in the first person as a character who is fed up with police brutality". He has credited the Talking Heads song "Psycho Killer" as an inspiration for the song. "Cop Killer" was written in 1990 and had been performed live several times, including at the 1991 Lollapalooza tour, before it was recorded in a studio.
The recorded version mentions Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates and Rodney King, an unarmed, black, motorist whose severe beating by Los Angeles Police Department officers had been caught on videotape. Shortly after the release of the Body Count album, a jury acquitted the officers and riots erupted in South Central Los Angeles. Soon after the riots, the Dallas Police Association and the Combined Law Enforcement Association of Texas launched a campaign to force Warner Bros. Records to withdraw the album.
Following its release, the song was met with opposition, with critics ranging from President George H. W. Bush to various law enforcement agencies, with demands for the song's withdrawal from commercial availability, citing concerns of promoting anti-police sentiment. Ice-T defended the song's lyrics, as did other proponents who did not believe that the song posed any risk and supported its release and sale.
The Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas called for a boycott of all Time Warner products in order to secure the removal of the song and album from stores. Within a week, they were joined by police organizations across the nation. Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Lloyd Bentsen and Al D'Amato protested the release of the song by canceling their planned cameo appearances in the 1993 Warner Bros. Pictures political film Dave.
Some critics argued that the song could cause crime and violence. Dennis R. Martin, the former president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, argued:
The misuse of the First Amendment is graphically illustrated in Time Warner's attempt to insert into the mainstream culture the vile and dangerous lyrics of the Ice-T song entitled "Cop Killer". The Body Count album containing "Cop Killer" was shipped throughout the United States in miniature body bags. Only days before distribution of the album was voluntarily suspended, Time Warner flooded the record market with a half million copies. The "Cop Killer" song has been implicated in at least two shooting incidents and has inflamed racial tensions in cities across the country. Those who work closely with the families and friends of slain officers volunteering for the American Police Hall of Fame and Museum are outraged by the message of "Cop Killer". It is an affront to the officers—144 in 1992 alone—who have been killed in the line of duty while the police was upholding the laws of our society and protecting all its citizens.
Others defended the album and cited the fact that Ice-T had sympathetically portrayed a police officer in the 1991 film New Jack City. Many people from the music world and other fields were supportive of the song. For example, in response to Dennis Martin's criticism, Mark S. Hamm and Jeff Ferrell argued:
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Cop Killer (song)
"Cop Killer" is a song by American heavy metal band Body Count. Released on the group's 1992 self-titled debut album. The song's lyrics about "cop killing" were criticized by President of the United States George H. W. Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle. Ice-T has called "Cop Killer" a "protest record". He eventually recalled the album and rereleased it without the song.
Ice-T, who wrote the song's lyrics, referred to "Cop Killer" as a "protest record", stating that the song is "[sung] in the first person as a character who is fed up with police brutality". He has credited the Talking Heads song "Psycho Killer" as an inspiration for the song. "Cop Killer" was written in 1990 and had been performed live several times, including at the 1991 Lollapalooza tour, before it was recorded in a studio.
The recorded version mentions Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates and Rodney King, an unarmed, black, motorist whose severe beating by Los Angeles Police Department officers had been caught on videotape. Shortly after the release of the Body Count album, a jury acquitted the officers and riots erupted in South Central Los Angeles. Soon after the riots, the Dallas Police Association and the Combined Law Enforcement Association of Texas launched a campaign to force Warner Bros. Records to withdraw the album.
Following its release, the song was met with opposition, with critics ranging from President George H. W. Bush to various law enforcement agencies, with demands for the song's withdrawal from commercial availability, citing concerns of promoting anti-police sentiment. Ice-T defended the song's lyrics, as did other proponents who did not believe that the song posed any risk and supported its release and sale.
The Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas called for a boycott of all Time Warner products in order to secure the removal of the song and album from stores. Within a week, they were joined by police organizations across the nation. Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Lloyd Bentsen and Al D'Amato protested the release of the song by canceling their planned cameo appearances in the 1993 Warner Bros. Pictures political film Dave.
Some critics argued that the song could cause crime and violence. Dennis R. Martin, the former president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, argued:
The misuse of the First Amendment is graphically illustrated in Time Warner's attempt to insert into the mainstream culture the vile and dangerous lyrics of the Ice-T song entitled "Cop Killer". The Body Count album containing "Cop Killer" was shipped throughout the United States in miniature body bags. Only days before distribution of the album was voluntarily suspended, Time Warner flooded the record market with a half million copies. The "Cop Killer" song has been implicated in at least two shooting incidents and has inflamed racial tensions in cities across the country. Those who work closely with the families and friends of slain officers volunteering for the American Police Hall of Fame and Museum are outraged by the message of "Cop Killer". It is an affront to the officers—144 in 1992 alone—who have been killed in the line of duty while the police was upholding the laws of our society and protecting all its citizens.
Others defended the album and cited the fact that Ice-T had sympathetically portrayed a police officer in the 1991 film New Jack City. Many people from the music world and other fields were supportive of the song. For example, in response to Dennis Martin's criticism, Mark S. Hamm and Jeff Ferrell argued: