Oakland rapper Mistah F.A.B says he has no regrets after police arrested him on illegal fireworks charges on Wednesday. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the sacrifice you make when you stand up for the community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The high-profile artist and community activist, whose real name is Stanley Cox, posted a video on the Fourth of July that prompted police to search his house and businesses.<\/p>\n
According to court documents, police found a stolen gun at Mistah F.A.B\u2019s home and multiple boxes of fireworks at his downtown Oakland business Dezi\u2019s Lounge.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love my community. As I say if I\u2019m guilty of anything it\u2019s organizing and galvanizing and bringing a safe space for community members from all walks of life to enjoy a good old Fourth of July firework show,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mistah F.A.B says setting off fireworks is a neighborhood tradition in Oakland. He insists the event was safe.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m guilty of organizing an event bringing a community together in a village, a kumbaya. So we can have a fireworks show in our neighborhood, where kids can feel safe.\u00a0I’m guilty of that?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not a way to bring joy. It\u2019s about public safety. I grew up here when it comes to fireworks were out of control,\u201d City Councilmember Noel Gallo said.<\/p>\n
Gallo says he\u2019s surprised and disappointed. Especially because he says Oakland has worked so hard to send a clear message that fireworks are dangerous and illegal in the city. In fact, fireworks sparked multiple fires in the city over the Fourth of July and left the streets a complete mess. Gallo helped clean up much of the aftermath.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think definitely he needs to apologize to the community, the community that we represent that we\u2019re here to serve that has supported us in the past and there needs to be certainly an apology to the neighborhood,\u201d Gallo said.<\/p>\n
Mistah F.A.B says he\u2019s staying positive and urges the community to do the same. He says he\u2019s focusing on his next community project: a school supply giveaway next month.<\/p>\n
\u201cShowing up for the community and this is what happens. I wanna let the community know I\u2019m not gonna stop showing up for y\u2019all. I\u2019m gonna continue to keep putting on for these kids. Just so these kids can see a positive light in their community,\u201d Mistah F.A.B said.<\/p>\n
The artist pleaded not guilty in court Friday morning to two misdemeanor charges of possession of dangerous fireworks and one misdemeanor charge of receiving stolen property.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oakland rapper Mistah F.A.B says he has no regrets after police arrested him on illegal fireworks charges on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-411537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}