The Brooklyn rapper who threatened to burn down the Diamond District on Fox News Saturday posted several Facebook live videos shortly before the interview suggesting that protests may turn violent at night, prosecutors said.
Israel Burns, 34, who goes by “Ace Burns,” was arrested Saturday after a Fox News appearance during which he said he’d use gasoline to torch the Diamond District if the mayor and governor didn’t come to speak to a crowd gathered at Barclays Center. Prosecutors used Burns’ Facebook Live videos to back up their allegation that the rapper made terroristic threats.
“This is peace, we ain’t get started yet, my name is Ace Burns, I know what a Molotov cocktail is, you don’t want it to go that way,” Burns said in a Facebook video Friday, according to prosecutors. “The real hitters, they coming at night, we gonna protect the middle ground or we gonna burn it down,” he rhymed.
Burns was released on $5,000 bail Sunday night at his arraignment. Prosecutors originally asked for $15,000 bail in his case, but a judge set the lower amount.
“The bail is absurd. The quotes they use to justify the charges, they rhyme, they’re poetry. The guy is a rap artist,” said Burns’ defense attorney Kenneth Belkin. “The Brooklyn DA’s office, one of the most liberal DA offices in the country, what they are doing is tantamount to criminalizing speech. This was political speech. It wasn’t incitement to violence. He was using allegory and metaphor.”
In a second video, posted Saturday around 1 p.m., Burns said politicians could stop any burning by enacting policies.
“The policies have a chance to curtail the violence, to stop the burning, it really hasn’t started yet,” Burns said in the video that he took in front of the Barclays Center, according to a criminal complaint.
“It’s political theater aimed at getting our politicians to enact meaningful reforms,” Belkin said. “Did anyone think Eminem was going to commit the crimes he rapped about? Maybe they should pick him up, I don’t know.”
On Saturday’s Fox appearance, Burns said that if de Blasio and Cuomo didn’t come to Barclays to “talk to us and give the youth some direction,” the “next stop is the Diamond District,” Burns said.
“And gasoline, thanks to Trump, is awfully cheap. So we’re giving them a chance right now to do the right thing.”
He was arrested later that day near Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn.
“Don’t let them murder me,” he yelled to other protesters as cops pushed him into an unmarked car, video obtained by the Daily News shows.
Burns, a father of two children who live in Nigeria, was arrested Saturday after cops identified him by his distinctive camouflage face mask he wore on his Fox News appearance, authorities said.
Burns was charged with making terroristic threats and falsely reporting an incident. He’s due back in court Aug. 10.
