Image: Wiz Khalifa accepts the award for choice R&B Hip Hop song for “See You Again” during the 2015 Teen Choice Awards in Los Angeles, California, United States August 16, 2015. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni
REUTERS – Rapper Wiz Khalifa was handcuffed and then released by U.S. Customs officers after refusing to stop riding his hoverboard at Los Angeles International Airport, authorities said on Sunday.
A video on Khalifa’s Instagram site shows three U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers pinning Khalifa to the floor on Saturday and telling him to quit resisting.
“I am not resisting, sir,” Khalifa, 27, says in the video.
In a separate video on his Twitter site, Khalifa is shown standing handcuffed with the officers.
“I didn’t do nothing,” Khalifa tells them. “What you want to do? Put me in jail because I didn’t listen to what you say?”
Jaime Ruiz, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman, said Khalifa was handcuffed but not arrested. Ruiz said travelers are treated with respect by officers, but that they must follow orders for their own safety and those of others. Khalifa failed to do so, he said.
Khalifa, whose real name is Cameron Jibril Thomaz, is a prominent rap artist with numerous hit songs including “See You Again,” which was No. 1 for more than two months this year on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Khalifa said on Twitter he was returning to the United States from a trip to France and Finland.
On Twitter, Khalifa said he came from a generation that rode hoverboards, which resemble skateboards as they hover above the ground.
(Reporting by Kevin Murphy in Kansas City; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
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