Photographer files police report against Odd Future’s Left Brain
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Photographer Amy Harris, who alleged that Odd Future’s Vyron ‘Left Brain’ Turner slapped her as she tried to shoot the group during a performance in New Orleans late last month, has confirmed media reports that she has filed a police report against the performer.
The L.A.-based hip-hop collective was in New Orleans over Halloween weekend for a set during the three-day Voodoo Experience when Turner allegedly got physical with the photographers stationed in a pit below the stage. He allegedly slung water at them and pushed and kicked cameras before slapping a freelance photographer ‘across her face, knocking her camera to the ground,’ according to a report from NBC33 News in New Orleans.
She initially wrote in a statement on her website following the incident that she wasn’t pursuing charges against Turner, but wanted “at minimum” a public apology from Turner so he could be “held accountable for his actions.”
Late on Oct. 31 the Voodoo Experience distributed a statement through its publicity firm MSO. ‘The Voodoo Experience does not in any way condone the behavior of Odd Future towards the approved media assembled in the photo pit during the band’s set yesterday (Sunday, October 30),’ read the statement. ‘Festival organizers would like to apologize to their media guests who experienced and/or witnessed this abusive behavior.’
Turner denied the claims and commented on the matter on his Tumblr account. ‘I didn’t slap that old ... I’m not lettin nobody sue me for my paper. It’s my job to slap cameras out the way so like I said before, ... your opinion your blog and ya peeps. Ha.’ The post has since been removed.
Harris wrote on her site that personal attacks on her “credibility and motives for discussing the incident, have caused me to re-evaluate my initial decision.” She has declined to speak further on the matter but issued a new statement on her website on Sunday.
“It is my understanding that a police report I filed in New Orleans on Friday has now become public knowledge and is being reported on various websites. At this time, I do not wish to discuss the filing of the police report other than to say that, upon further reflection of events of the past week, it is something I needed to do,” she wrote.
Harris wrote of receiving at least one violent threat via email. She has requested that further questions be sent to her attorney, Amy Borlund at Doll Amir & Eley in Los Angeles.
An Odd Future representative denied that Turner had struck Harris and said the incident had been ‘wildly blown out of proportion by the photographers.’
‘There simply is no truth to the accusation floating around the internet,’ the rep wrote in a statement sent to Pop & Hiss. ‘It’s no secret that Odd Future has a love/hate relationship with photographers at shows simply because sometimes they are given access the group wishes there fans would have instead.
‘After telling the photographers to clear out multiple times,’ the statement said, Turner ‘took a swipe at a few cameras, NOT people. To manipulate the situation to insinuate an attack on a woman specifically is careless and manipulative.”
Odd Future’s publicist, Heathcliff Berru, couldn’t be reached for comment on the charges. Turner wrote that he was back in New Orleans over the weekend to see group member Frank Ocean’s solo show on Saturday.
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-- Gerrick D. Kennedy
