Officers have asked for permission to use his song "Glorious" in an upcoming recruitment video the department is making.
But Macklemore has been hard to reach. The department tweeted the rapper, saying it hasn't been able to get in touch with his publicist.
Police using hip-hop to woo the public is nothing new on the Front Range. Denver's Chief Robert White and other officers starred in this music video:.@macklemore I am written to ask if we could use "glorious" in a recruiting video. The email we found for publicist isn't working. Would love to have your blessing. Thank you.
— Arvada Police (@ArvadaPolice) December 15, 2017
And Arvada cops are no strangers to making music videos, either. A video the department made features a painfully earnest twangy country number by Detective Scott Buckley (below) that accompanies images of ass-kicking, gun-wielding cops and dogs with gnashing teeth.
Buckley sings:
"Respect, dedication and responsibility.
Tell me do you have character and integrity?
Do you want to matter? Do you have what it takes?
Do you have courage? Then for goodness sakes,
After you've checked out the rest, then consider the best.
You've seen who we are in the community.
Nobody does it better – could be your destiny.
Do you wanta make a difference? Do you want to be proud?
If you've been waiting for your chance, then for crying out loud,
If you want to be impressed, then consider the best..."
Not mentioned, of course, are the many officer resignations related to excessive force that have garnered the Arvada Police Department a less-than-stellar reputation over the years, one the upcoming training video might be trying to reverse.
Macklemore, who was part of the protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle in 1999, has been an activist and critic of police violence for decades.
When asked about police brutality on Ebro in the Morning on New York radio station Hot 97 in 2014, he said, "Eric Gardner, Mike Brown, very sad situations, very, very sad situations — situations that left so much frustration in me, watching these injustices again. It was one of those moments of: How is this happening again?
"If there's anything positive that has come out of their deaths, if there is anything positive, I believe that it's brought attention to the injustices that have been plaguing America since the jump: racial profiling, corrupt judicial system, police brutality," he continued.
"These are things that now have attention," he added. "Now, people are talking about these things – which is great. People are mobilizing. And I've been inspired by the mobilization, watching people in the community get involved. There's a tipping point here, we've hit a threshold, and we're going to speak about it. We're going to mobilize, we're going to hit the streets, and we're going to be heard about this issue."
Whether the same artist who decries police violence will be willing to lend Arvada officers his voice in luring new recruits has yet to be seen, and as of this writing, neither Macklemore's publicists nor the Arvada Police Department have returned our messages asking about the tweet.
