Record Exec Arrested For Not Tweeting To Stop Tweenage Riot

by Robert Quigley | 4:20 pm, November 23rd, 2009

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Twitter: now illegal not to use? No. That is a very misleading hook.

But: a record executive for Island Def Jam Records, James Roppo, was arrested for not sufficiently tweeting to break up a tween crowd that rioted after Justin Bieber canceled an appearance at a mall in Long Island. Justin Bieber, by the way, is the 15-year-old singer of “One Less Lonely Girl” who apparently hangs out with Usher a lot.

From the New York Times:

James Roppo, a vice president of Island Def Jam Records, which is releasing Mr. Bieber’s first album, “My World,“ this week, was charged with endangering the welfare of children and obstructing governmental administration for refusing to send a Twitter message asking the crowd to disperse. Mr. Bieber posted his own Twitter message to fans, saying that the police would not allow him to enter the building, and that they had threatened to arrest him if he did not leave. Island Records later apologized to fans in a written statement.

As AllThingsD points out, this is especially confusing because Roppo did tweet that Justin Bieber fans should disperse. “the event at roosevelt mall is cancelled. please go home. the police have already arrested one person from my camp. I don’t want anyone hurt,” read one tweet.

More to the point: do teenage Justin Bieber fans — the ones with smartphones — read and comply with tweets during a riot? We thought they don’t use Twitter anyway.

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Arrested for not tweeting, James Roppo, Justin Bieber, Justin Bieber Riot, Roosevelt Field, Roosevelt Field Riot, Twitter Arrest

3 comments

Joe Callan says:

November 23, 2009 at 4:32 pm

Wow. I try and restraint myself from hyperbole, but I can’t help it this time. When people start rioting over someone like Justin Bieber, it becomes crystal clear that our society is long overdue for a massive, plague-like culling.

Magister says:

November 24, 2009 at 11:04 pm

I clicked through to the “All Things Digital” post and my first thought was that whomever wrote it apparently doesn’t excel in critical thinking. They’ve posted a tweet saying go home, then one that was time-stamped three minutes later that said go home, they’ve already arrested “someone from my camp”.

Logically, the manager refused to send the tweet, so he was arrested and once that proved to whomever ended-up sending the tweets that the cops were serious, the requested tweets were posted.

(Also, technically guy wasn’t arrested for not sending the tweets. I’m guessing the non-tweet falls under the obstruction charge, but that’s for the courts to figure out)

What also struck me about the “AllThingsD” post was that the images of the two tweets are time-stamped 4:30 and 4:33pm, which the post text defines as “eastern”, but if you click through to the singer’s Twitter or ignore the images and click the status link, they are marked as 1:30 and 1:33pm on Twitter’s site.

Magister says:

November 24, 2009 at 11:08 pm

It’s kind of ironic that I knock someone’s thinking ability in such a poorly-written comment.

IOW: The person was arrested, then the tweets were sent.
And, there’s a time-stamp difference between the AllthingsD images and the actual tweets.

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