The 5-0 messed with the wrong dude this time...

Not that they ever seem to mess with the right guy.

According to August Brown's column in the LA Times, San Francisco police recently made fools of themselves and further diminished the police's already staggeringly awful reputation when they harassed The Coup's frontman Boots Riley, allegedly searching his car and launching accusations, to the extent that they investigated HIS ALTOID CASE.

Riley tells the story best, "One of the cops finds Altoids in the car, and is yelling at me, asking 'What pills are these?' I said, "They're breath mints; they're curiously strong."

Now I know that racial profiling is nothing new by any means, but this is just entertainment. Of all the people they could have messed with, it happens to be probably the most politically active rapper there is. He's a respected activist in the Bay Area, and a majority of his songs are about revolution and overall discontent with the system. And of course, he had to be the one the jackass pigs pulled over.

Right now he is working with the Office of Citizen Complaints to see what his legal options are in this case, according to the LA Times column. This isn't the first time, or the last, that this has happened to him. "I've gotten stopped for reckless eyeballing, for staring too hard," Riley told Brown. "These officers think they're Tarzan and this is a jungle, that all the animals need to be tamed."

The animals that need to be tamed are law enforcement officials. Why is it that I never seem to encounter officers who are sensible human beings, who communicate any sort of intelligible thought that really makes me comfortable that they are, indeed, "protecting and serving?" Maybe it's something they learn in the academy that demands they be ignorant monsters who should perceive contact with anyone 15-35 and able-bodied a threat, and any contact with black people an absolute state of emergency. Or maybe they are as scared of the black community as blacks are of them.

I mean, seriously, an Altoid case?

For those not in the know, The Coup is a Bay Area-based, politically charged hip-hop group who got national attention when their 2001 album Party Music originally showed the World Trade Center towers blowing up on the album cover--shortly before 9/11. The FBI raided Boots's apartment but found that it was just a coincidence... an amazing one at that.

I've been onto The Coup for a few years now and I love what they do. They are multi-dimensional and one of the only ones using hip-hop as protest music these days--and that's not to take away from the other topical raps Boots is capable of articulating. The Coup's style is pretty laid back, almost ambient, and I think you Southern heads would dig it... Boots's drawl and delivery are reminiscent of Devin the Dude or even Big Boi.