Jermaine Dupri was cruising South Beach with his boys when cops noticed the black Lincoln Navigator's tint was so dark that they couldn't identify the race, sex, or number of passengers inside the SUV. Police pulled over the party to see who was headed north on Washington Avenue at 3:24 a.m. and what they had to hide.
Two officers noticed a "strong odor of marijuana emanating from within the vehicle." There was no weed present, however. Still, they called in backup. Dupri tweeted: "Somebody pls call TMZ. Five police cars just pulled us over cause [names] got the car smelling like snoop dogg. oh shit!... lol this is a movie."
Befuddled at the lack of drugs in the Lincoln, the cops patted down the Grammy winner and his three friends until they found something of note. Their big score? A single Xanax on Mauricio Bustos, a DJ from South Florida who happens to be playing at Wall Miami tonight.
Cops then called in a drug dog to search the vehicle for more contraband, while Bustos explained that he had a prescription for the pill at home. One of the buddies went and fetched the script from Busto's pad on Alton Road. When the cops saw it was legit, they were forced to take Bustos out of handcuffs and send everyone home.
Is it racial profiling to pull over a car because you can't see "the race, the sex, and the quantity of passengers in the vehicle"? Or is it the opposite of racial profiling to pull over a car full of people without knowing their race? The police report notes that the rear passenger windows only allowed 11 percent of light to pass through, but that wouldn't affect the ability of the driver to see. Safety was not the issue, then, and the driver wasn't violating any traffic laws that morning.
Either way, the guys seem to be laughing about it now. "Hey @jermainedupri, top story on @TMZ today??" Bustos tweeted this morning. "Lmao, those handcuffs were kinda tight on me! Anyone got a Xanax?"
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