Bay Area Rapper Vindicated by Gas Station Surveillance Footage

By Pete Eyre
Cop Block
Aug. 26, 2014

Rico Rossi pulled into the gas station to get some gas. Suddenly road pirate vehicles surrounded his vehicle. Doors opened and police employees rushed at Rossi, shouting commands, with guns drawn.

Rossi was ordered to the ground. Still unsure of what provoked this undesired police “service,” Rossi got down on both knees and raised both hands into the air. It was at that moment that Glenn Walkup, an employee of the Martinez Police Outfit, squeezed the trigger of his Taser, aimed squarely at Rossi.

"My body was completely immobilized. It was the most painful experience of my life” Rossi later said.

Walkup’s colleagues then nonchalantly put Rossi into handcuffs.

After being brought to the local cop shop, Rossi was threatened with time in a cage for allegedly “resisting.”

That happened in October of 2011.

Now Walkup, the triggerman, is no longer employed at the Martinez Police Outfit, and Rossi was awarded a settlement for his treatment.

What helped bring that conclusion? The fact that the exchange was captured on video.

Thanks to the gas station’s surveillance video, it is objectively clear to all involved that Rossi had not acted in the wrong – he was not a threat to Walkup or anyone present, and thus the coercive actions taken toward him were without merit.

The reason for the draconian police response? They had been fed misinformation by the woman upset at Rossi.

Said Rossi in an email sent to Cop Block:

In October of 2011 I was shot in the back, while on my knees by a bay area police officer, who was conspiring with my ex-wife to set me up. The incident was caught on gas station surveillance video and I filed a civil lawsuit against the officer, the department and the city. The officer is no longer working as a cop, and I was awarded a large settlement as a result of the lawsuit. I also went on to write a song about my situation and produce a music video that is based on true events.

Rossi, a rapper based in the Cali Bay Area, created this video to document the incident:

As Rossi makes clear in the video description:

Children should never be used as a tool in a separation. Ultimately the person who suffers the most is the child. The family law and justice systems are completely flawed, and easily manipulated by and catered to women, often times denying fathers of their parental rights. Although I can’t change the system, I can at least use my voice to raise awareness about this problem. If it happened to me, it could happen to you.

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Pete Eyre Pete Eyre is co-founder of CopBlock.org. As an advocate of peaceful, consensual interactions, Eyre seeks to inject a message of complete liberty and self-government into the conversation of police accountability. Eyre went to undergrad and grad school for law enforcement, then spent time in DC as an intern at the Cato Institute, a Koch Fellow at the Drug Policy Alliance, Directer of Campus Outreach at the Institute for Humane Studies, Crasher-in-Chief at Bureaucrash, and as a contractor for the Future of Freedom Foundation. He later hit the road as co-founder of the Motorhome Diaries and Liberty On Tour, and now resides in the 'shire.