Meek Mill was reportedly arrested on reckless endangerment charges for popping wheelies on a dirt bike in NYC on Thursday, August 17, following his appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
The 30-year-old rapper (whose real name is Robert Rihmeek Williams) was arrested around 10:15 p.m. on the corner of 10th Avenue and Dyckman St., according to police.
An NYPD spokesperson told NBC that they were alerted to the incident after Mill posted a since-deleted Instagram video of himself sans helmet popping wheelies on the bike in traffic near NYC’s Inwood neighborhood around 8:23 p.m.
Mill’s lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, told the New York Daily News that the “All Eyes on You” rapper was singled out because of his celebrity status. “That level of investigation is normally reserved for heinous crimes, not petty offenses like doing a wheelie on the street where you’re endangering no one’s life but your own,” he said. “It really stinks of obvious targeting an individual who is a celebrity and maybe who law enforcement don’t like, and it’s not what the system is supposed to be about.”
Tacopina claimed that police saw Mill doing the wheelies, but did nothing. After they saw the video on social media, they decided to arrest him while he was attending a children’s basketball clinic, Tacopina says.
“If his name was John Smith, he wouldn’t have even been arrested,” Tacopina claimed. “You could go to 110th St. and Dyckman right now and you’ll see 10 kids popping wheelies on their bikes. Nobody gets arrested.”
According to ABC, he arrived at court too late on Thursday to be arraigned, so he he had to be held overnight. Police have been cracking down on dirt bikes and ATVs in the Inwood neighborhood.
Mill, who split from Nicki Minaj in January after two years of dating, has had some previous run-ins with the law. He was sentenced to 90 days of house arrest in February 2016 for violating his probation for a 2008 conviction for drug dealing and gun possession. He was also charged with assault in March after an altercation with an employee at St. Louis International Airport.
