Words by Eboni Euniece
T.I. received a much needed happy ending in his most recent trial. Dealing with the loss of his sister, the rapper is sure to be appreciative the positive outcome of his case. In the Graham v. Harris case, the most shocking detail is how invested the judge himself seemed.
“As a lawyer, you hope that busy judges can find time to get interested in your cases. It doesn’t always work out that way.”T.I.’s Lawyer Albert Chapar Jr. said. A judge of the sort was needed in this messy situation. In September 2010 the brutal beat down of Norris Gresham, an engineer working at T.I.’s recording studio, was far from discreet. Gresham had been beat, dragged down 30 flight of stairs, and beat again in front of a crowd. We’re assuming the crowd was large because that same night there were multiple events going on at Echo Studios. Gresham came to the studio earlier in the day to celebrate the premiere of the movie “Takers”, a Labor Day cookout, and a showcase for the Grand Hustle artist. Later that night Gresham was tasked distributing CDs, keeping the group safe, and with babysitting Grand Hustle artist Nathaniel Josey, aka Mac Boney, and keep him out of trouble. Josey was wearing Killer Mike’s chain. Everyone went back to the studio after and Josey realized the chain was missing. Sh*t hit the fan. Gresham claims he was jumped by employees of Grand Hustle and Killer Mike himself and held hostage for 12 hours while the building was searched.
According to the court summary on Law.com, the building went on lockdown after Killer Mike threatened nobody was leaving until his chain was found and left. The chain was eventually found in the ceiling. Gresham claimed he’d seen an artist put a gun in the same spot and placed the blame on him. Accusations started to fly around the room and the fight began resulting in Gresham’s beat down. But what does this have to do with T.I.? Gresham claimed that T.I. ordered the attack on him. There was no evidence to prove that or that T.I. even knew the event occurred at all. “At first glance, the occurrence of an injury upon the property of another may tempt a party to invoke premises liability law,” Chapar said. “However, Judge Schwall below recognized that the facts of this case could not support recovery on a premises liability theory because the injuries as alleged … were the consequence of a personal dispute” between the victim and the attacker.
In other words, this was personal beef and that’s none of my business. The fight could’ve escalated anywhere it just happened in a building T.I. owned but that doesn’t make him accountable. He knew nothing of the situation and wasn’t even there. Gresham just wanted him to accountability for his artist but there was evidence against T.I. himself leaving this case dismissed.
