A North Carolina fast food restaurant owner has apologized to the Raleigh Police Department after officers said the store’s employees sang NWA’s anti-law enforcement anthem, “F*ck tha Police,” while they dined on Friday.
A now-deleted Facebook post claimed that the restaurant’s “manager sang along as well,” The News & Observer reports.
The viral social media message prompted David Harris, the owner of Smithfield’s Chicken ’N Bar-B-Q restaurant, to issue a stern apology and promise to “terminate anyone employed that doesn’t share our RESPECT of ALL law enforcement.”
On Saturday, a Facebook post on the Raleigh Police Department’s page said that the department “appreciates the long term and strong relationship it continues to have with Smithfield’s.”
Raleigh Police Protective Association union President Matthew Cooper also posted a Facebook message. “We really appreciate the support we have received from the incident involving Smithfield’s Chicken and BBQ,” Cooper’s message read. “We are confident that a positive resolution will occur as a result from our effort”:
As recently as last July, rapper Ice Cube vowed to continue to perform the vulgar 1980s song.
In the wake of fatal police shootings in Dallas, Texas, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the NWA rapper and actor told TMZ, “I ain’t gonna change nothing I do because I ain’t do nothing wrong.”
The profane “f*ck the police” refrain is often heard at Black Lives Matter rallies and is shouted during protests.
Ice Cube performed “F*ck the Police” last July at the 2016 Le Festival d’été de Québec (Quebec City Summer Festival), just two days after Houston New Black Panther Party member Micah X Johnson shot and killed five officers in Dallas.
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @jeromeehudson.