Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey said this week she was “angry” and “pissed off” when she saw the video capturing the asphyxiation death of a Black man in Minneapolis at the hands of a white police officer, while emphasizing her support for peaceful protests and belief that looters are hurting the wrong people.
Lacey was asked during an interview with KTLA5 about building relationships with protest organizations like Black Lives Matter, which has previously called for her resignation based on a lack of convictions for police brutality and excessive force.
“I’m from this community. I grew up in L.A.,” Lacey said. “I care tremendously about these cases. I am upset and angry over the murder of George Floyd in the Minnesota case.
“When I first saw that video … my parents are from the South, my mom’s from Georgia, and my father’s from Texas, and they came here in the ‘50s to escape the Jim Crow laws and the violence that was happening against African-Americans back then,” Lacey said. “When I saw the Minnesota video and that poor man … just helpless and the look on the officer’s face with his hands in his pocket, just not caring that this was a man who was in distress, and now we know dying, I was angry, I was pissed off.”
Lacey said her office has been reviewing its own cases to “make sure that we make these decisions in a fair and ethical manner. And it is challenging. As you know, many of these cases have filed, have gone to trial, lost. We’ve filed cases against officers for use of force and we’ve had some successes, some not so successful, but I think that the narrative has kind of taken over — that is just false.”
The district attorney said she looks forward to sitting down with organizers to have a very frank conversation about police brutality.
“Obviously, it’s illegal. I’m against it,” Lacey said. “But the California laws … do not necessarily permit you to file every case that every person in the public thinks ought to be filed.”
Lacey, who is facing former San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon in a runoff in November, said she has chosen to channel her anger through the system.
“I support the protesters … the peaceful supporters, but I can’t support looting. My mom used to say ‘two wrongs don’t make a right,”’ Lacey said. “You can be angry, you can be frustrated … but the looting … hurts people who may have had nothing to do with the injustice that we’re seeing.”
