There was a protest in Los Angeles yesterday in front of the ACLU building organized by the L.A. chapter of Black Lives Matter. In case you’re wondering why they were out protesting the day after their “victory” in the Derek Chauvin trial, organizer and BLM Los Angeles co-founder Melina Abdullah wanted the crowd to be crystal clear on the answer to that question. Convicting one police officer isn’t nearly enough and she has plenty of work left to do. Proclaiming “we ain’t near done!” she set forth portions of the group’s future agenda and raised complaints about elected officials who aren’t sufficiently woke to be onboard with BLM’s goals. But first they had some other business to attend to, including some yoga and a “collective breathing exercise.” (Los Angeles Times)

As Oge Egbuonu, an L.A.-based yogi and filmmaker, guided the crowd of about 150 people through the practice, she said its purpose was to help them calm their bodies and to hold space for those who can no longer breathe because of police violence.

“As we breathe in and as we exhale a collective sigh of relief in the name of George Floyd, we ain’t near done,” said Melina Abdullah, a Cal State professor who co-founded and helps lead Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles, after the exercise. She stood on a stage in front of the American Civil Liberties Union building in downtown L.A., across the street from the L.A. Police Protective League.

“We ain’t near done!” she repeated.

Abdullah clearly has a lot of issues and doesn’t see Chauvin’s conviction as any sort of turning point. The rally was advertised as a collective effort to continue working to defund the police and “disrupt police associations.”

On the first goal, Abdullah complained about L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti’s recent announcement of an increase to funding for the LAPD, which Ed Morrissey wrote about earlier. She referred to Garcetti, an extremely liberal Democrat, as “this trash mayor.” She cited the shooting of eight people in 14 days by the LAPD as part of the reason for her anger. Absent from her remarks was any mention of the burgeoning violent crime rate in her city since the police were initially defunded last year, but I suppose it’s hard to keep up with all the headlines sometimes.

The location of the protest was no coincidence either. As noted above, one of the other goals of BLM Los Angeles is to “disrupt police associations.” The ACLU building is directly across the street from the headquarters of the L.A. Police Protective League, the union representing nearly 10,000 uniformed law enforcement officers up to the rank of Lieutenant. Exactly how BLM plans to “disrupt” the union wasn’t specified, but the protesters are clearly upset with them about something.

They’re also supposedly going after the L.A. Police Benevolent Association (which also covers firefighters as well). Why? Because even retired police officers and firemen must be terrible human beings too, I guess. And what about the Fraternal Order of Police? Yep, they’re going to have to go too, I’m afraid.

Despite her somewhat casual language on the podium, Melina Abdullah is listed as a professor at Cal State in Los Angeles where she describes herself as a “Hip Hop scholar.” She’s also quite active on social media, as you might imagine. She regularly encourages her followers to not be satisfied with simply defunding the police. She wants the police removed entirely.

Don’t be afraid to say
ABOLISH THE POLICE. #BlackLivesMatter

— Melina Abdullah (@DocMellyMel) April 21, 2021

You know, it would be interesting (just as a scientific experiment, mind you) to observe what would happen if Ms. Abdullah could be granted her wish, if only for a while. Being somewhat familiar with the conditions on the ground in Los Angeles, particularly on the south side, what if we just yanked all law enforcement out of the city entirely for three to six months and let the gangs run wild? I wonder if Melina Abdullah’s opinion of whether or not that city could exist without the police would change when most of it was burned down and there was little or nothing left in the stores to steal. Perhaps not, but then again, as a professor at Cal Tech, she can probably afford to live in one of the nicer, safer neighborhoods anyway.

In any event, we shall see where this road leads us. The debate over police “reform” isn’t going away any time soon, and will be taken up in Washington in the coming weeks. Hang on to your hats.