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Friday, Sep 10, 2010 6:11 PM UTC

Justin Bieber: Rebel without a cause

The 16-year-old singer pelts state troopers with water balloons and laughs. Is he becoming this decade's bad boy?

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Topics: Justin Bieber,

Justin Bieber: Rebel without a causeSinger Justin Bieber poses for a portrait in West Hollywood, Calif., Thursday, May 6, 2010. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)(Credit: AP)

Justin Bieber is developing into quite the little badass. He’s ruling the charts, dominating Twitter to the point where the microblogging website reportedly has racks of servers dedicated just to his account, and he’s earned enough street cred that hip-hop giants Kanye West and Raekwon of the Wu-Tang Clan sought out the Canadian crooner for a collaboration (video below). Now, Bieber is going after The Man.

The pop star was throwing water balloons before his sold-out show at the Maryland State Fair on Sunday and reportedly pelted two state troopers who were on hand for crowd control. One of the balloons hit an officer’s gun holster, soaking him from the waist down, and a second bounced off another officer’s chest without bursting.

The state troopers were ready to discipline Bieber, 16, but Bieber quickly retreated to his trailer while his bodyguard interjected and successfully dissuaded the officers.

Eyewitnesses say Bieber had been practicing with the balloons for some time before the incident. Which could be interpreted in one of two ways: He was simply horsing around like any normal unruly teenager, or he was honing his aim for his attack on the cops. For the sake of this story, let’s hope it’s the latter.

If that weren’t enough, Bieber further climbed the Steven Seagal-”Above the Law” scale by mocking the troopers on Twitter. “Still laughing,” the post read. “GREAT DAY.”

So the questions remain: Is this the beginning of Bieber’s transformation into this generation’s preeminent bad boy? Decades from now, will college students don T-shirts imprinted with Bieber’s face, the way they do now with Che Guevara? Is he James Dean 2.0?

At the very least, let’s hope with his newfound taste for hip-hop and rebellion, Beiber commemorates this moment by covering N.W.A.’s classic anti-authority anthem “Fuck tha Police.”

Until then, here’s Bieber’s collaboration with Kanye and Raekwon.

More Chris Le.

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