Was Lil Tjay specifically targeted by the police and arrested him without legal basis?
The "Calling My Phone" rapper's legal team thinks that the NYPD had no right to search his vehicle, which led to his arrest for gun possession. Attorney Dawn Florio tells TMZ Hip Hop that Tjay was merely a passenger in the vehicle along with a number of other others, and she insists that the vehicle was legally parked on the roadway.
Florio states that when police arrived, they did not give a justification for checking the vehicle, and most significantly, the gun they discovered does not belong to Tjay. Therefore, she asserts that the traffic stop itself was fake, and that the police had no jurisdiction to arrest her client. Florio believes that the NYPD targeted Tjay because of the social media posts he and fellow Bronx-born rapper Ice Spice made to promote the filming of their "Gangsta Boo" music video.
Tjay is currently incarcerated and awaiting a judge's decision.
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It was on Monday, January 16 at 4 p.m., when Lil Tjay was stopped during a traffic stop due to his tinted windows and missing front license plate. In addition, they found a handgun in his Cadillac Escalade. As a result, the artist was arrested for possession of a weapon. Crime in NYC tweeted, "On Monday, a 21-year-old Bronx rapper known as Lil Tjay was detained along with four others after police discovered loaded guns in his Cadillac Escalade.
They were stopped because their vehicle's windows were darkened and its front license plate was missing." The New York Post reports that during the traffic check at 183rd Street and Ryer Avenue, police confiscated four firearms. Officers report that four persons in the vehicle were detained, but only the artist and two others riding in the SUV with him were charged with criminal possession of a weapon.
As reported by AllHipHop.com, Lil Tjay was nearly killed by a devastating shooting last summer. He has subsequently healed and is been resuming his normal routine.
During the Thanksgiving holiday, he connected with his female friend Ice Spice and gifted others with Thanksgiving food. Ironically, Ice Spice was involved in a fight with police around the same time, on the same day, in a different place, and with the same charge. Markus Grisham, 34, who was in the car with Ice Spice, was detained and charged with illegal possession of a 9 millimeter gun, according to police records. The female rapper, whose true name is Isis Gaston, was not arrested.
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