Released on the group's 1992 self-titled debut album, the song was written two years earlier, and was partially influenced by "Psycho Killer" by Talking Heads.
[5] The song's lyrics about "cop killing" was criticized by then-President of the United States George H. W. Bush,[6] as well as Vice President Dan Quayle.
[9] The recorded version mentions then-Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates, and Rodney King, a black motorist whose beating by LAPD officers had been caught on videotape.
Shortly after the release of Body Count, a jury acquitted the officers and riots broke out in South Central Los Angeles.
The Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas (CLEAT) called for a boycott of all products by Time Warner in order to secure the removal of the song and album from stores.
[6][13] Dennis R. Martin (Former President, National Association of Chiefs of Police) argued that: The misuse of the First Amendment is graphically illustrated in Time Warner's attempt to insert into the mainstream culture the vile and dangerous lyrics of the Ice-T song entitled "Cop Killer".
Those who work closely with the families and friends of slain officers volunteering for the American Police Hall of Fame and Museum are outraged by the message of "Cop Killer".
For example, in direct response to the criticism made by Dennis Martin above, Mark S. Hamm and Jeff Ferrell argued the following: Ice-T is not the first artist to put a "cop killer" theme in United States popular culture.
But perhaps the best-known case is Eric Clapton's cover version of Bob Marley and the Wailers' "I Shot the Sheriff", which reached the top of the U.S. music charts in the mid-1970s (a feat not approached by Ice-T).
[17] In a July 1992 editorial in The Wall Street Journal defending his company's involvement with the song, Time Warner co-CEO Gerald M. Levin repeated this defense, writing that rather than "finding ways to silence the messenger", critics and listeners should be "heeding the anguished cry contained in his message".
[11] In July 1992, the New Zealand Police Commissioner unsuccessfully attempted to prevent an Ice-T concert in Auckland, arguing that "Anyone who comes to this country preaching in obscene terms the killing of police should not be welcome here",[15] before taking Body Count and Warner Bros. Records to the Indecent Publications Tribunal in an effort to get it banned under New Zealand's Indecent Publications Act 1963.
[15] At the July 1992 annual shareholders' meeting for Time Warner, actor Charlton Heston, who was a minor Time Warner shareholder, was given the opportunity to address the crowd, and, in a well publicized speech, recited lyrics from both "Cop Killer" and another song from Body Count, "KKK Bitch" – which namechecked PMRC head Tipper Gore – in an attempt to embarrass company executives into dropping the album.
[19] In his autobiography, Charlton Heston wrote that he considered KKK Bitch "even more disgusting" and that he had tried to persuade the National Organization for Women to join a protest against its mentions of sex with 12-year-old girls but they didn't show interest.
[20] In a press conference in Beverly Hills to announce a change in policy, Ice-T made journalists watch almost 40 minutes of a documentary on the civil rights movement before he spoke.