Bieber Faces Felony Egging Charge

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According to the L.A. Times, the Biebster is one of eight people who were detained this morning while police searched his home, allegedly looking for evidence showing who egged his neighbor's house last Thursday.

This is ridiculous for lots of reasons.

First, it involves Justin Bieber.

Second, the crime, such as it is, has been classified as a felony egging because the homeowner claims that the damage to his house was $20,000. From eggs. Hitting a house. "It is a very nice home with an expensive decor," said a spokesman for the L.A. County Sheriff's department, who oddly did not follow that statement with "but we don't really give a &$*# about that." Egg-removal may not be the most pleasant task, but it's not like you need to parachute in a team of professional contractors to take care of it, either. Here's what Popular Mechanics suggests, basically: "[G]et out the hose and gently wash the egg off the house." Make Bieber do it, of course, but is it a police matter?

Third, the police reacted as reasonably as you might expect—they got a search warrant and detained everybody in Bieber's home while they searched it, allegedly, for egging evidence. The warrant apparently asserted the right to search for "video surveillance or other relevant evidence"—it's not clear whether they found any of that, but you know what they did find? Drugs (type unidentified). A later report notes that someone (not Bieber) was arrested for that reason as a result of the search.

I could care less about Bieber, who lately has been even more irritating than usual, on top of his well-known cavalier attitude toward monkey abandonment. Nor do I care about his entourage (except for the monkey). But as so often happens, a minor incident led to a questionable search warrant which led to a drug bust that will probably be cited to justify the whole thing. The Fourth Amendment is not strengthened in the process.

To be fair, the cops did not drive a tank into his house, as sometimes happens, so they did show some restraint.