Source: Jason Koerner / Getty
As uniquely identifiable as he is, Lil Uzi Vert found himself the victim of mistaken identity when police thought they had their guy in a robbery that involved… a puppy.
According to TMZ, the “Just Wanna Rock” rapper found himself a wanted man when on Thursday (Aug. 31), a Facebook post courtesy of the Wilkes-Barre Township Police Department named him as a person of interest in a dognapping case in a pet store in Pennsylvania. Problem is, Uzi never kidnapped a puppy in his life (at least not to our knowledge).
TMZ reports:
Cops have since taken down the post with Uzi’s photo and replaced it with a different man with face tatts — who is the actual suspect accused of swiping a pooch from Brookside Pups.
The Uzi version lived on the internet for about 30 minutes — enough time for the FB post to be flooded with comments about the Philly artist.
So why the confusion? Brookside Pups tells TMZ … the guy who allegedly grabbed a puppy and fled Thursday afternoon has Lil Uzi Vert’s face as his profile picture on a social media account, which they sent to cops.
We guess none of the cops on the case are into rap music because anyone would’ve recognized that it was in fact Lil Uzi Vert on the profile picture of the suspect in question. Still, knowing they have egg on their face over the mix-up, police are shifting blame to the pet store for providing them with the picture of Lil Uzi Vert. Once they realized that Vert’s face tattoos didn’t match that of their suspect, they took the picture down. The pet store then provided a new picture of the suspect which is hopefully the right picture this time.
The ridiculousness of the situation wasn’t lost on Roc Nation as they told TMZ, “The Wilkes-Barre Township Police Department should be embarrassed and ashamed for disparaging [Uzi’s] character. This grave error could’ve had significant repercussions on Uzi’s career and epitomizes how Black men can be wrongfully charged and arrested by police departments across the country.”
The Wilkes-Barre Township Police Department’s gonna have to hold this “L” because they earned it.
Interestingly enough police say the actual suspected dognapper was last seen making his way to Uzi’s hometown of Philadelphia. Wouldn’t be surprised if some cops on the case still think Uzi’s their man. Just sayin’.
What do y’all think of this ridiculous mix-up? Let us know in the comments section below.
