The husband of Los Angeles’ first black district attorney has been charged with multiple counts of assault with a firearm for pointing a gun at Black Lives Matter protesters who showed up on the couple’s doorstep.
David Lacey, whose wife is LA District Attorney Jackie Lacey, has been charged with three counts of assault with a firearm, according to charging documents filed Monday by California State Attorney General Xavier Becerra in Los Angeles superior court. The three assault charges – misdemeanors – refer to three separate protesters Lacey supposedly menaced with his weapon.
A group of 30 protesters showed up at the Laceys’ home in the Granada Hills neighborhood at around 5am on March 2, demanding to speak to the DA – the first black person and first woman elected to the position in Los Angeles’ history – about police shootings. The protesters claimed Lacey had promised to meet with them months previously but had been dodging them ever since, and told local media they therefore “decided to have the meeting in front of her house.”
Instead, David Lacey opened the door and pointed his gun at the protesters, warning them “I will shoot you, I don’t care who you are. Get off my porch.”
#BREAKING This morning Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey’s husband pulled a gun out on Black Lives Matter activists who protested his wife in front of their house. @BLMLApic.twitter.com/wnCFMMvaWV
While some writeups of the altercation suggested Lacey actually stepped outside to threaten the protesters, video of the incident filmed by California State University Los Angeles professor and BLM organizer Melina Abdullah indicates he remained inside the home while attempting to remove the protesters from the couple’s property.
While Lacey condemned the protesters’ tactics at the time, explaining the early-morning visit “crossed the line” and led her husband to believe he was “about to be harmed,” she also apologized to the demonstrators, telling them David was “profoundly sorry” for what had happened.
However, the DA explained the incident was part of a pattern of “harassment” up to and including “death threats” she had endured at the hands of the BLM protesters for months. Abdullah admitted the protesters had been to the Lacey home at least once before and that they were at the time staging weekly demonstrations outside her office, often shouting the names of victims of police violence in the manner that has become familiar over the past three months of BLM protests nationwide.
The early-morning visit took place a day before the primary election, in which Lacey faced a pair of challengers attacking her from the left. While she came out ahead in March, she will again square off against the second-place finisher – former San Francisco DA George Gascon – in November. Gascon stepped down from that post last year to relocate to his hometown of Los Angeles and challenge Lacey, whom critics have accused of not being tough enough on cops who kill civilians. Los Angeles leads the US in police killings, and the officers responsible are seldom prosecuted – let alone convicted.
Gascon is one of a handful of “progressive” prosecutors and DA candidates who have received extensive support from billionaire currency speculator turned liberal eminence grise George Soros, who has been pouring cash into district attorney races nationwide in an effort to remake the justice system in his image. Gascon also has the backing of the Black Lives Matter organization and has been peeling away Democratic Party endorsements from Lacey, including California Rep. Adam Schiff. Despite her own issues with being seen as excessively “tough on crime” and the black community, former prosecutor and prospective vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris has also endorsed Gascon, and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti – who already endorsed Lacey – has announced he is reconsidering his support for her.
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