Perhaps “Lock Me Up” would’ve been a better title than “Where is GizWop?” for this song.
J’Quan Baker can’t stay out of trouble. He brings his problems on himself. First of all, he is a felon. He is on probation for stealing a car, and also for being a “Rogue and Vagabond.” (While I condemn car theft, being a “rogue and vagabond” just sounds like a lifestyle choice to me, and not necessarily a bad one. I often daydream of roaming myself.)
Then he posted a rap video brandishing firearms. When he flashed his guns to the camera, he held one out to flaunt the illegal machinegun conversion device installed on it. (That’s the screenshot I used for this post.)
Predictably, the feds looked down on his illegal possession of guns, especially machineguns. So they obtained cell site location information (CSLI) for his phone to figure out where he stayed, conducted visual surveillance to confirm it, and then hit his house with a search warrant.
In his bedroom, they found a stolen gun (it was pink) and nearby, his wallet with his ID, a cellphone they unlocked with his face, his bank card, and his court paperwork. All this is what my training agent taught me to call “indicia” of control (meaning, it indicates that he controlled the area where the firearm was found, and by extension the firearm itself). I can still hear Cisco saying it—“It’s indicia, Tom!”—in his Nicaraguan accent. That guy really taught me a lot about being a good investigator.
So the Feds arrested J’Quan and prosecutors asked the court to detain him pending revocation of his probation for the old crimes, or pending trial for the new crimes. Either way, they want him to stay locked up.
In their detention memo, they described the music video that brought him to their attention. I listened to the song so you don’t have to. (But if you want to, here it is.)
It isn’t very good, IMHO (and I am a confessed fan of rap music). It’s rushed and garbled, and tries to be high energy but is just chaotic. And the worst thing is, you never find out where GizWop is. (I don’t think; it was pretty hard to understand.)
I have written many times before about the public safety threat posed by illegal machinegun conversion devices (MCDs). They’re still being recovered at an alarmingly high rate.
In an opinion just this week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit held that the law that criminalizes possessing an MCD is constitutional and that the devices (which are themselves legally machineguns) are not protected by the Second Amendment. Many other circuits have reached the same conclusion. (You can read the opinion here.)
You can read the detention memo here.
Once again, a tip o’ the hat to Seamus Hughes for including this interesting case in his weekly CourtWatch newsletter. If you’re not reading it, you’re missing out on some good stuff.