Rapper Wiz Khalifa forced to ground by officers in reported hoverboard incident

Wiz Khalifa at the airport. Photograph: GVK/Bauer-Griffin/Getty Images

The rapper Wiz Khalifa was handcuffed and forced to the ground by US customs officials at Los Angeles international airport on Saturday, claiming afterwards the use of force was prompted after he refused to get off his hoverboard.

The 27-year-old, whose real name is Cameron Jibril Thomaz, posted a video clipof the incident to his Instagram account, in which he was seen pinned to the floor by six officers.

One tells him to “stop resisting”, to which he replies: “I’m not resisting, sir.”

The video’s timecode suggests the incident occurred at 3.56pm.

Calls to a number listed under Thomaz’s name in Los Angeles were not answered, but the rapper sent a series of tweets shortly after incident, in which he seemed to suggest that riding the new technology would become a rights issue of the future

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Wiz Khalifa at Los Angeles international airport on 18 August. Photograph: Broadimage/Rex Shutterstock

“Haven’t been slammed and cuffed in a while. That was fun,” he tweeted, before launching into a defence of the personal transportation technology he haspromoted numerous times.

“I stand for our generation and our generation is gonna be riding hover boards,”the rapper posted.

The self-balancing Segway technology has seen a recent run of celebrity endorsements, including one from Justin Bieber. The singer posted a video of himself using one to roll around a private jet. The actor and musician Jamie Foxx posed with one in a recording studio. An Instagram video shows Wiz Khlaifa being held down by US customs officers.

A spokeswoman for US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said privacy laws prevented discussion of the specifics of the incident, but added: “An uncompliant passenger or any disruptive behavior could put many at risk in this highly secure area.”

The response is unlikely to satisfy Khalifa, who predicted CBP officers themselves would one day use the technology.

“They’ll be riding them soon as well,” he tweeted. “Maybe ones I design.”

Khalifa’s PR team did not respond to a request for comment.