Insane Clown Posse files suit against DOJ and FBI over 'Juggalos' gang classification

Lawsuits -- how do they work?

Rap duo Insane Clown Posse, the ACLU and four fans have filed suit against the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice because they want the agencies to remove "Juggalos" from their list of gangs.

The FBI's National Gang Intelligence Center currently classifies Juggalos as "a loosely-organized hybrid gang.”

ICP fans call themselves Juggalos and they typically wear clown makeup and sometimes have Hatchetman tattoos.

"Organized crime is by no means part of the Juggalo culture," according to the complaint against the government agencies filed in Detroit.

According to Saura Sahu, an attorney assisting the ACLU of Michigan, the profiling that goes along with being on the FBI’s gang list led to a poor turnout at the band’s annual Gathering of the Juggalos and led to the arrests of numerous people on drug-related charges.

"The FBI had the impact they wanted: they scared people away from attending concerts and from affiliating together for the purpose of listening to music,” Sahu told Rolling Stone.

He indicated that the FBI has never adequately justified exactly how Juggalos earned their gang classification.

"None of the information revealed showed any significant link between any significant percentage of the Juggalos and the kind of criminal behaviors that the Department of Justice is supposed to be targeting through these gang initiatives," Sahu said.

"We don't fit in anywhere," Insane Clown Posse's Violent J told the magazine. "And when people don't understand you, people fear you. All we're trying to do is be like the Stephen King of music. We like to tell horror stories."

The defendants can respond to the complaint or ask a judge to dismiss the case.

"We don't know if we can beat the FBI," Violent J said. "But we're damn sure not gonna sit there and accept it."

[Rolling Stone]