BY HANK REICHMAN
Yesterday the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office agreed to drop all criminal charges against Melina Abdullah, a professor and chair of Pan-African Studies at California State University, Los Angeles and an activist in the AAUP-affiliated California Faculty Association. Prof. Abdullah, a prominent Black Lives Matter leader, faced charges of assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest, as well as multiple counts of disturbing a public meeting and unlawful assembly in connection with incidents during meetings of the city’s civilian Police Commission in 2017 and 2018.
Prof. Melina Abdullah
Under terms of an agreement between prosecutors and Abdullah’s defense team, officers will arrest the professor for a perceived disruption only if she refuses to leave after being given a verbal warning and being ejected from a meeting. If she violates the agreement before her next court date on August 8, the city attorney’s office could decide to prosecute her on the original charges. Otherwise, all eight counts will be dismissed.
Prof.Abdullah’s attorney, Carl E. Douglas, told the Los Angeles Times the rules are comparable to those enforced at Los Angeles City Council meetings, and he believes the agreement will shift the way demonstrators are treated at Police Commission meetings. “We have changed the culture in Los Angeles as it deals with protest,” he said. “No longer will black protest be criminalized. Because the rules that have now been set in place are very important for anyone who may want to protest at the Police Commission.”
According to the Times,
Abdullah was originally arrested during a May 2018 commission meeting that ended when Sheila Hines-Brim — whose niece, Wakiesha Wilson, died while in LAPD custody in 2016 — threw a powdery substance at then-Police Chief Charlie Beck. Some activists had claimed Hines-Brim threw her niece’s ashes at Beck.
Police accused Abdullah of assault after she allegedly grabbed an officer’s arm during the commotion. But when the Los Angeles city attorney’s office filed charges against Abdullah last August, prosecutors also accused her of four counts of unlawful assembly, one count of disturbing a public meeting and one count of interfering with a public meeting in connection with alleged misconduct that took place at commission meetings in July and August 2017, records show.
Prof. Abdullah’s supporters gathered over 11,000 signatues on a petition calling on prosecutors to drop the charges. “This is not the city attorney’s office coming after Melina Abdullah.” the professor told supporters after the hearing.. “This was the city attorney’s office coming after black protest.”
