9179: The Game Playing On Twitter.

From The Los Angeles Times…

Rapper’s Twitter prank on sheriff’s station may lead to charges

The Compton sheriff”s station was flooded with calls Friday night after The Game gave 580,000 followers a number to call for an internship. Officials may charge him with disrupting law enforcement.

By Robert Faturechi and Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times

The calls started without warning. Every line on every phone in the Compton sheriff’s station lighted up at once, hundreds of calls pouring in for hours.

One sheriff’s official compared the scene to the aftermath of a major earthquake or a mass shooting. But the cause of the deluge wasn’t violence or natural disaster.

It was Twitter.

At 5:23 p.m. Friday, the Twitter feed for Compton rapper The Game posted a message encouraging his 580,000 followers to call the posted number if they wanted an internship. The tweet, which officials are saying might result in criminal charges, gave no indication that the phone number was in fact the official help line for the Compton sheriff’s station.

”It was almost like a symphony of misery. You’ve got a multitude of phones ringing simultaneously,” said headquarters bureau Capt. Mike Parker.

Many of the initial callers hung up when they heard the standard station greeting: “Compton sheriff’s station, may I help you?” Deputies figured the station lines were faulty and even called the phone company for help. But some callers were insistent even after hearing law enforcement on the line: “Hey I’d like to get the music internship.”

”That’s when we put two and two together,” Parker said. The captain, an avid Twitter user himself, said he got calls from the Compton station saying “Help us please, please make it stop.” He logged onto Twitter and sent a message to The Game, asking him to take down the post.

After a lengthy delay, the number came down sometime before midnight. But the rapper, whose real name is Jayceon Terrell Taylor, seemed less than apologetic.

He retweeted a Times article about the prank, and then blamed the stunt on a friend, warning the alleged Tweeter: “you betta sleep wit jeans on tonite homie. … Sheriffs come knockin’ don’t be in ya pajamas.”

Read the full story here.