‘Black Lives Matter’ Protesters Met With LAPD Chief
Melina Abdullah began her week in jail. On Monday, the Cal State professor was one of two people arrested for trying to deliver a letter to Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck on behalf of protesters who for almost two weeks now have camped outside LAPD headquarters. They've been holding signs declaring "Black Lives Matter" and demanding an end to what they see as a pattern of impunity for cops who kill unarmed people of color. By Friday, she was meeting with Beck himself—and while he didn’t meet any of their demands, the fact that he was even acknowledging them was portrayed as a sign of progress.
“It was worth it,” Abdullah told reporters at a press conference immediately after she and three other activists met with Beck to discuss the deaths of people such as Ezell Ford, a 25-year-old black man who was unarmed when he was shot in the back last August.