This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Artist News Legal
Insane Clown Posse’s lawsuit against the FBI reinstated
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 21 September 2015
Insane Clown Posse scored a court win last week in their ongoing litigation against the FBI, as an appeals court reinstated legal action dismissed last year.
As previously reported, the lawsuit relates to the FBI’s 2011 ‘National Gang Threat’ report, which listed ‘juggalos’ – the collective name of the rap duo’s fans – as a “hybrid gang”. The Posse themselves and a number of their fans claim to have been negatively affected by that classification.
Last year a judge dismissed the case after the US Department Of Justice argued that the FBI cannot be held responsible for how information in any of its reports is used by third parties, basically ruling that the juggalos’ beef was with other law enforcement agencies, the US Army and assorted employers rather than the feds.
The Insane Clown Posse appealed, and last week the Sixth US Circuit Court Of Appeals reinstated the rap-metal duo’s case, allowing it to proceed to court. Welcoming that development, the Posse said on their website on Friday: “We’re thankful that the juggalo family will finally get their day in court”.
They went on: “Discrimination against someone based solely upon the type of music they listen to is just flat out wrong and it’s time that the legal system acknowledges that. The FBI’s labelling of juggalos as a gang has wreaked havoc on thousands of lives, resulting in job losses, dismissal from military service, eviction, lost child custody and constant harassment and profiling from law enforcement organisations all across the country”.
