FBI Explains Why They’re After ICP
There’s an interesting legal battle going on between the FBI and Insane Clown Posse. ICP has sued the Bureau for labelling members of their fanbase as dangerous gang members. That’s, well, insane.
How did it come to this? Muckrock explains:
It all began five years ago in Marion, Ill. A routine 2008 FBI memo noted that the hip-hop duo Insane Clown Posse would soon host the eighth annual Gathering of the Juggalos in the nearby town of Cave-In-Rock, asserting “the Juggalos [are] a legitimate gang with a large following … [who] follow the ICP in almost a religious manner.”
Three years later, the FBI officially designated Insane Clown Posse fans a “loosely-organized hybrid gang” in its 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment report, alongside Mexican drug cartels and human traffickers.
Records released to MuckRock user Rich Jones show that the FBI’s Salt Lake City office conducted a 14-month investigation into the horrorcore duo’s fanbase. The file identifies Juggalos and Juggalettes as a “violent street gang” numbering in the thousands, whose members “sometimes paint their faces to look like wicked clowns” and “continue the dress by carrying small axes.”
And it gets better. Keep reading.
