The artist Wyclef Jean was detained and placed in handcuffs by Los Angeles authorities during a search for an armed robbery suspect on Tuesday.
Jean posted a video to Twitter that showed him standing next to a police car with his hands behind his back early Tuesday morning. In the video, Jean said he had just left the recording studio with the rapper T-Baby before he was pulled over by the police.
“Y’all see the police have handcuffs on me,” Jean said. “They just took off my Haitian bandana. That’s what’s going on with Wyclef in L.A. right now. The L.A.P.D. have me in cuffs for absolutely nothing.”
Jean was detained by officers with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, not the Los Angeles Police Department. In a statement on Facebook, the sheriff’s department said Jean was detained because his vehicle fit the description of the car belonging to armed robbery suspects who had stolen from a gas station in West Hollywood.
“Due to the violent nature of the call (armed robbery), the similarity of the suspect vehicle to Mr. Jean’s vehicle, the time of day of the unfolding detention and Mr. Jean’s furtive movements and demeanor, he was handcuffed,” the sheriff’s department said.
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