Tyler the Creator has just been arrested for allegedly kicking off a riot at an SXSW gig. He was booked by by Austin police officials right before his flight out of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport on Saturday afternoon.
The Odd Future rapper was released on a $25,000 bond but now faces a charge of inciting a riot, which is a Class A Misdemeanor in the state of Texas. If convicted, he could face up to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine.
The incident occurred last Thursday during at afternoon SXSW set at Scoot Inn. The venue was at its full capacity, with 999 people rammed into the space, but Tyler allegedly egged on a large crowd outside to force themselves past security.
According to the arrest affidavit, Tyler did this twice, at one point yelling "All y'all outside the gates, y'all push through!" The riot turned ugly, too: according to a bartender at the venue, he was punched while trying to protect some girls who had fallen to the floor during the incident.
You can see video of the riot, below:
Tyler seems pretty unfazed by being arrested and has already performed at another gig in Dallas. (To be fair, this isn't his first run-in with cops: in 2011, he was arrested during a show at the Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood and charged with "suspicion of vandalism" for allegedly destroying the venue's sound equipment.)
He is, however, pretty unhappy about the riot charge being linked to the hit-and-run tragedy that occured earlier in the week, which happened outside another one of his gigs:
A statement on the Austin Police Department website reads, "Regardless of the size of a crowd, the encouragement of unruly and unlawful behavior is against the law and cannot be tolerated."
