On October 17 last year, just weeks before her re-election, the Coalition for Community Control Over the Police protested her appearance at a community town-hall entitled, #AskLacey.
“She has the power if she wanted to, to go further and prosecute things that we know as a community to be clear and blatant violations of our people’s rights, including the killing of Brother Africa and so many others,” said Dr. Melina Abdullah, chair of the Pan African Studies Department at California State University L.A. and organizer with Black Lives Matter Los Angeles. Dr. Abdullah is also a member of the L.A. County Commission on Human Relations, which has initiated a countywide Policing and Human Relations Project.
“She hasn’t even indicated that she’s going to do anything by way of her investigatory powers to look into the killing of Wakiesha Wilson, so there’s a whole lot that she could be doing that she’s not doing and I don’t think that she will. I think that she has shown that she is on the side of the system, on the side of the police, and not on the side of the people,” Dr. Abdullah told The Final Call.
Mr. Shine attributes D.A. Lacey’s unopposed win to L.A. County’s demographics. Once a person is elected to county-wide positions, it’s realistically very difficult to unseat an incumbent, he said. It’s rare such officials are removed from office, but that’s the reality of the L.A. political landscape, Mr. Shine added.
“Even though there’s obviously real opposition to her, there really just is not the capacity and resources to mount a county-wide campaign where you’re talking about millions of dollars and tens of thousands of votes necessary to just mount a viable challenge,” he added. For now, the community plans to keep organizing and fighting for justice.
There’s always the capacity and power of the people to rise up, to recall her, and to demand her resignation, Dr. Abdullah said, and that’s something they should absolutely consider.
She also feels people should consider the lesson of allowing D.A. Lacey to run unopposed and skate into office.
“We shouldn’t have allowed that to happen, so moving forward, we can’t allow that to continue to happen with elected officials who continue to do this kind of thing,” she said.
“I think people are disillusioned with electoral politics, and we have a right to be disillusioned. At the same time we can’t underestimate the power of elected officials and as we’re working towards revolution, we also need to remember that the people who are in office have power right now, and we need to figure out how to mitigate some of the damage that they’re doing right now.”
Article Appeared @http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/National_News_2/article_103466.shtml