Rapper Snoop Dogg arrested for drugs and gun possession

Rapper Snoop Dogg. Picture / Reuters

LOS ANGELES - Rapper and actor Snoop Dogg, one of the biggest names on the West Coast hip-hop scene, has been arrested after airport police said they found a gun and marijuana in his car.

The 35-year-old rapper, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, was arrested yesterday at the Burbank airport near Los Angeles by police who had stopped him for leaving his car too long in the passenger loading area, Burbank police spokesman Kevin Grandalski said.

Broadus was booked and released on US$35,000 ($53,945) bail and is expected to make his first court appearance on Monday.

Meanwhile prosecutors in Orange County, south of Los Angeles, are considering whether to file charges against the rapper for trying to bring a collapsible police baton on board a plane last month.

Orange County Sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said security staff at John Wayne airport spotted the baton in a computer bag before Broadus took a flight to New York.

Broadus has said the baton was a prop in a video he was to make in New York and he was unaware it was illegal to take it on a plane.

Snoop Dogg, who has a previous conviction for cocaine possession, made his recording debut in the early 1990s as a protege of Dr Dre. He played a drug dealer turned informant in the 2004 movie "Starsky and Hutch".

- REUTERS