Judge orders LAPD to DESTROY photos taken in Black Lives Matter’s top attorney’s LA home after they raided the mansion due to swatting call of a hostage situation
A judge in Los Angeles has ordered police not to reveal what they discovered when they raided the home of a lawyer representing one of the city’s leading Black Lives Matter activists.
LAPD officers took photos inside Dermot Givens’ home Tuesday as they hunted for a suspect they were tracking via an AirTag tracking device.
Givens claimed the photos contained legal documents about BLM leader Melina Abdullah, who is suing the department after they stormed her $1.6 million home in 2020 in response to a reported swatting incident.
“It’s fucking embarrassing,” Givens, 67, said.
“I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but this was planned.”
Police say they were hunting for a thief when GPS led them to the home of attorney Dermot Givens
Givens claimed the photos contained legal documents about BLM leader Melina Abdullah
BLM leader Melina Abdullah is suing the department after they stormed her $1.6 million home in 2020 in response to a reported swatting incident
Abdullah, co-founder of the city’s BLM chapter, claims officers violated her civil rights in 2020 by forcing her at gunpoint from her home in the Crenshaw neighborhood after receiving a hoax call about a hostage situation there.
She has claimed that police used the prank, which was carried out by teenagers, as a pretext to “terrorize” her for her role in organizing protests following the 2020 killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
She was beaten again in September 2021 a day after filing the lawsuit and a third time just days later.
“While the LAPD response was much more restrained than last year’s, and not overtly violent, it caused trauma from the previous incident, which I believe was their intention,” the Pan-African Studies professor wrote on Instagram afterward.
“I find it unbelievable that such an incident would occur less than 24 hours after my attorneys, and I announced a lawsuit against the LAPD in August 2020 for their extremely violent response and harm to me.
“The timing is not coincidental.”
The campaign group has been dogged by questions about what happened to the $90 million in donations it received in the wake of Floyd’s death, and the purchase of a $6 million property in Los Angeles.
According to Givens, agents “ransacked” his home looking for firearms and ammunition, identity theft and counterfeiting-related materials, cameras, lock picking equipment, cell phones and other communications equipment.
Abdullah’s home in the Crenshaw neighborhood was repeatedly knocked down as her profile soared
She said the police response was intended to intimidate her and her family in “retaliation” for her anti-police activities.
Abdullah (seen above in Los Angeles in June 2020), is a co-founder of BLM’s LA chapter
The 6,500-square-foot mansion in Southern California was purchased by BLM for $5.8 million on October 27, 2020, despite the fact that the seller, Dyane Pascall, had purchased it for $3.1 million just six days earlier.
BLM also reportedly wanted to keep the house purchase secret, despite three of its former leaders reportedly recording a series of videos in the spring of 2021 of them dining and drinking champagne outside the estate.
Documents and internal communications show that the purchase of the luxury property was handled in a way that blurs the lines between use for good causes and use that would benefit some of the organization’s leaders, New York magazine reported.
The discrepancy between BLM’s purchase price and Pascall’s purchase price also appears to remain unexplained.
Meanwhile, just 33 percent of Black Lives Matter’s $90 million donations collected found their way to charities, according to a shocking report released last summer.
The group distributed approximately $30 million between 2020 and 2022, during which time it raised $90 million in donations while promoting itself as the preeminent civil rights organization in the US.
Among the benefactors of BLM’s meager donations were friends and family of co-founder Patrisse Cullors, particularly her graffiti artist brother Paul, who received $1.7 million in salaries and contracts during that period.
According to property records, Abdullah owns three homes: two in Los Angeles and one in Baltimore; their total value exceeds $2.2 million.
According to real estate agents’ websites, the Crenshaw home that was “slapped” is believed to be worth between $1.3 million and $1.6 million.
Data said police only gave him part of a warrant before they “ransacked” his home, emptied drawers, opened his safe and searched his suitcase.
The warrant gave officers the ability to search for firearms and ammunition, “identity theft and counterfeiting-related materials,” cameras, lock-picking devices, and cellphones and other communications devices.
“I say, ‘Are you all hitting me?’ Data told the LA Times.
“And they said, ‘Who are you?’ And I said, ‘I live here!’
The lawyer said police “know exactly who I am and where I live” and accused them of “retaliation and intimidation” because of his work representing clients suing the LAPD.
LA Judge Rupert Byrdsong ordered police on Friday to destroy all the photos they took at Give’s home and hand over the remainder of the warrant.
Property photos show the luxurious seven-bedroom, 6,500-square-foot Los Angeles mansion was reportedly purchased with donations from Black Lives Matter
The property’s patio and outdoor garden features an in-ground pool and cabana
The property features more than six bedrooms and bathrooms, a ‘butler’s pantry’ in the kitchen (pictured), as well as multiple fireplaces and a ‘mud room’.
Abdullah said: ‘The first thing I thought was, ‘Oh, that’s crazy that they hit the lawyer who is suing them on my behalf because he hit me.’
‘Along with, ‘Is Dermot okay?’
A police spokesman said the department was conducting an internal investigation and declined to provide further details about the search.
“This is an open criminal and internal affairs investigation,” spokesperson Capt. Kelly Muniz added.