David Lacey, the husband of Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey, has been charged for waving a gun at Black Lives Matter activists who ventured onto his porch during a protest in March.
Prosecutors charged Lacey, 66, on Monday with three misdemeanor counts of assault with a firearm in the March 2 incident, according to the Associated Press, which obtained the charging document filed by California’s attorney general.
Arraignment is scheduled for Aug. 13 in San Fernando, Calif.
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Lacey, the county’s first African American and first female district attorney, is running for a third term. She released a statement in response to the charges through her reelection campaign.
“The events that took place earlier this year have caused my family immense pain,” the statement said. “My husband acted in fear for my safety after we were subjected to months of harassment that included a death threat no less than a week earlier. Protesters arrived at my house shortly after 5 a.m. while I was upstairs. My husband felt that we were in danger and acted out of genuine concern for our well being.”
Black Lives Matter has weekly protests outside Lacey’s office over what activists see as a failure to hold law enforcement officers accountable for shooting Black suspects. After failing to gain the attention they were seeking, they held a rally outside Lacey’s house on the morning of March 2 — the day before the primary election.
Video recorded by the unarmed protesters showed Lacey’s husband David standing in the doorway, holding a gun and saying, “Get off of my porch. I will shoot you … We’re calling the police right now.”
Black Lives Matter Los Angeles co-founder Melina Abdullah, who is named as a victim in the criminal complaint, has said Lacey’s house was not off-limits because the district attorney is a public official.
Lacey received 49 percent of the vote in the March 3 primary election, falling short of the majority needed to avoid a runoff in November.
Black Lives Matter continues to hold weekly protests in downtown Los Angeles outside Lacey’s office, and the gatherings have increased in size since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.