Fantastic Negrito Claims He Was Wrongfully Detained, ‘Treated Like an Animal’ in Outside Lands Police Bust

UPDATE - Promoters for Outside Lands have now released the following statement:

"In all circumstances, we are most concerned with the safety and security of our attendees, artists and staff. We continuously look to protect and maintain the integrity of our credentialing system, and are so sorry that the artist was not able to perform due to this unfortunate breach."

UPDATE #2 - The San Francisco Police Department has released its own statement, although it does not mention Fantastic Negrito or his two colleagues by name:

"While acting on a tip from Another Planet Entertainment, San Francisco Police Officers stopped and detained three subjects on the corner of 25th Ave. and Fulton Street pertaining to someone selling non-transferable artist bands."

Fantastic Negrito, an Oakland roots musician and winner of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert contest, was supposed to play San Francisco’s Outside Lands festival Saturday afternoon, but his set was canceled after he was wrongfully detained in a wristband-scalping bust, he claims.

As reported in The San Francisco Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury News, the 47-year-old former BART station busker, whose real name is Xavier Dphrepaulezz, was cited for attempting to illegally sell a non-transferable artist wristband on Craigslist – although Dphrepaulezz says this was all a big misunderstanding.

Dphrepaulezz tells Yahoo Music that he arrived Saturday at the festival in Golden Gate Park with his driver, Alistar Monroe, and intern, John Beckmeyer, when they “got bumrushed by 10 San Francisco police, all in uniform. They were really aggressive; they handcuffed us, made us get on the ground, all that routine. I’m thinking, 'There’s some sort of mistake, and this will just take a minute to sort out and I’ll be on my way.'“

Dphrepaulezz says Beckmeyer started "looking very nervous and pale” when officers brought up the Craigslist ad; Beckmeyer then confessed that he’d sold an extra artist-only wristband, which belonged to Beckmeyer’s girlfriend who could not attend the festival. “He didn’t know he was going to be in trouble. He is a really good guy, an exceptional guy, a good intern. He just made a dumb mistake that affected all of us. I just don’t understand why I was still detained when he explained what had happened,” says Dphrepaulezz.

Dphrepaulezz says that even though his intern confessed right away, and police were aware that Dphrepaulezz was playing Outside Lands’ Panhandle Stage at 2:55 p.m., they “decided to cut off our wristbands and put us in the paddywagon anyway” and detain the singer and his entourage for three hours – while promoters for the festival canceled his set. (Police told The San Francisco Chronicle the detainment only took 90 minutes, not three hours.)

“This intern confesses what happened, and they did not care,” says Dphrepaulezz. “The SFPD were kind of a--holes. Why did they treat me like an animal, a criminal, when I’d done nothing wrong?”

Dphrepaulezz, who is handicapped in both arms due to injuries sustained in a 2000 car accident, also claims that having his hands cuffed behind his back for an extended period of time caused him “severe pain,” but that officers ignored medics’ recommendations to cuff his hands in front of his body instead. He does say the police were not violent or physical with him, however.

“Worse things have happened; it’s just a concert. People have been very supportive, because the story makes no sense. I’m just sad that so many [fans] got let down,” Dphrepaulezz says of his canceled performance.

Representatives for Outside Lands and the San Francisco Police Department have yet to respond to Yahoo Music’s request for comment or issue an official statement about the incident. Dphrepaulezz says he has “no idea” if his Outside Lands set will be rescheduled for Sunday, but suggests, “I’ll do a makeup show on the steps of the police station – a free show for everybody.”