Cops war on rap: Derby venue closed

Curious goings-on in Derby, where last night cops enforced a 24 hour closure on the T5 Club to prevent a Lloyd Banks gig.

The police complain they weren't given a chance to do "a risk assessment" and hadn't had enough "notice" of the gig - although this is a gig, with promotion and everything, so you'd have thought with the police being in the detection business they might have noticed for themselves.

Curiously, when the police started to kick up a fuss, the promoters offered to cancel the event, but this didn't seem to be good enough for the Derbyshire Police. We're not sure if they were attempting to throw their weight around, send out a message, or just show off their powers, but they insisted on having the venue closed outright:

Chief Inspector Gary Parkin said: "Unfortunately there have been a number of firearms-related incidents at similar events connected with this music genre in the East and West Midlands, London and Manchester.

"We accept the majority of people who attend are just there to enjoy themselves and sadly it is a small minority who cause significant problems.

"We have to balance this up against the security of all people visiting Derby's pubs and clubs and we have a duty to ensure they feel safe."

So, they don't seem to have problems with Lloyd Banks specifically, it's more rap in general - which seems rather a wide net to be casting out. And, since the news of the cancellation came through on Saturday lunchtime, what risk assessment was carried out on the effect of these phantom gunmen turning up and being pissed off the gig they'd bought tickets for had been axed with very short notice?

Yes, something must be done about violence at gigs - but to cancel a gig in short measure because of the genre of music looks a little dodgy; especially when the audience for the music in question contains a lot of young, black men. We seem to remember the police in the 1970s stopping young, black men going about their legal business with very little (often no) justification at all. Let's hope Derbyshire Police aren't just doing this on an industrial scale.