This post will be updated.
T.I. was arrested outside of the gated community where he lives early on Wednesday, according to a statement police gave to an Atlanta TV station. The rapper was charged with public drunkenness, simple assault and disorderly conduct.
Police from Henry County, located just outside Atlanta, said to local media that T.I. (whose legal name is Clifford Harris Jr.) did not have his key when he tried to return home at 4 a.m. A security guard wouldn’t let him in the community, and at some point T.I. called a friend. Both then argued with the guard, and when police arrived, they arrested both men.
According to WSB-TV in Atlanta, police say that T.I. at one point asked the guard, “Don’t you know who I am?”
“Tip was wrongfully arrested,” Harris’s attorney Steve Sadow said in a statement to the media on Wednesday, referring to the rapper by one of his nicknames. Sadow said that T.I. had a different version of events: that the guard was “asleep” when Harris arrived at the guardhouse to try to go home.
“It took Tip some time to wake up the sleeping guard,” Sadow wrote. “Tip clearly identified himself and sought entry. The guard refused entry. Tip was in contact with [his wife] ‘Tiny’ by phone and ‘Tiny’ confirmed that Tip should be let in immediately. The guard continued to refuse entry without justification. Words were exchanged and apparently the guard and/or a supervisor called the police. When the police arrived, they were not interested in hearing Tip’s side of the story and wrongfully chose to end the situation by arresting Tip.”
In an interview with the Blast after his arrest, T.I. said that he got into a “very heated debate” with the guard, but that there was no physical confrontation. “Simple assault,” in Georgia state law, does not require a physical assault to take place, just “reasonable apprehension” of receiving a “violent injury.”
T.I. also described local law enforcement as “white cops in a very white area,” though he noted that the guard was black.
The Washington Post left a message with Henry County Police Deputy Mike Ireland seeking more information.
T.I. has since been released. His friend was arrested on an outstanding warrant.