A retired New York Police Department (NYPD) detective, known as the Hip Hop Cop, has died.
A post on his Instagram page confirmed that Derrick Parker passed away on July 25. He was 61 years old.
Parker was known for his 2007 book, “Notorious C.O.P.: The Inside Story of the Tupac, Biggie, and Jam Master Jay Investigations from NYPD’s First Hip-Hop Cop.”
He was also a frequent news commentator on rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs, the rap music entrepreneur who was convicted on July 2, 2025, of federal transportation to engage in prostitution charges and is currently serving a 50-month sentence at a federal correctional facility in Fort Dix, New Jersey.
“I arrested Sean Combs in the past in the Club New York shooting and in the Steve Stoute assault,” Parker told NTD’s sister publication The Epoch Times two years ago. “I’ve dealt with Puffy quite a few times.”
In 1999, Parker said Interscope Records executive Steve Stoute accused Combs of bursting into his office and attacking him with two accomplices.
Hip Hop Cop Derrick Parker’s 2007 book Image courtesy of Derrick Parker
Parker was also present when, seven months later, Combs was arrested along with Jennifer Lopez, known commonly as J-Lo, after shots were fired at Club New York, a Times Square dance club.
“People said that J-Lo smuggled the gun, and J-Lo had a tight outfit on,” Parker said on April 3, 2024, while recalling the arrest. “I don’t know where she could have put that gun. So, I don’t think that’s true. I was the one who unhooked J-Lo from the cage when they had her at the precinct.”
The cage and unhook are police jargon for the back seat of a patrol car and freeing a person’s hands from handcuffs or restraints.
Parker most recently appeared as an interview subject in “Sean Combs: The Reckoning,” a four-part Netflix documentary series produced by rapper turned entertainment executive Curtis ‘50 Cent’ Jackson.
Jackson did not respond to requests for comment on Parker’s unexpected passing.
Parker was a detective solving homicides within the NYPD when he subsequently became the leader of a special unit created specifically to focus on crime in the rap and hip-hop communities.
Hip Hop Cop Derrick Parker in 2024. Image courtesy of Derrick Parker
“What I used to do,” Parker said in a telephone interview. “I used to be out because I had to be at these venues to see who’s coming, who’s got what beefs, who could be in the same room and that nobody gets killed because there’s always collateral damage.”
He retired from the NYPD in 2001 after 20 years.
The NYPD did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
