Sandy MaloneLos Angeles, CA – Black Lives Matter Los Angeles co-founder Melina Abdullah on Wednesday called the criminal trial of Jussie Smollett a “white supremacist charade” and said Black Lives Matter would continue to support the actor because “we can never believe police.”
Abdullah, a police abolitionist who is suing the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) for their response to multiple swatting calls at her home, characterized the former “Empire” star accused of faking a hate attack on himself as “courageously present, visible, and vocal in the struggle for Black freedom,” FOX News reported.
Smollett is facing six felony disorderly conduct charges for orchestrating the attack he claimed had been perpetrated by two white supporters of President Donald Trump as the actor was walking home from a Subway restaurant on Jan. 29, 2019.
He claimed the men called him homophobic and anti-black slurs and told him “This is MAGA country” as they beat him up and put a noose around his neck. He also said they threw a chemical on him.
Police believed that Smollett was a victim until the men who helped him perpetrate the hoax – brothers Ola and Abel Osundairo – returned from Nigeria and showed police the check the actor had used to pay them $3,500 to stage the attack.
Smollett, who is charged with falsely reporting the hate crime, testified in his own defense on Dec. 6 that he never would have called the police the night he was attacked because “I am a black man in America and I do not trust police,” according to Megan Crepeau of the Chicago Tribune who reported via Twitter live from the courtroom.
The actor claimed his manager heard the attack occur over an open cell phone line and called the police for him.
Smollett pleaded not guilty and has continued to insist the attack on him was not a hoax.
Attorneys gave closing statements on Dec. 8 and the case was sent to the jury for deliberation, the New York Post reported.
Smollett has repeatedly been accused of race-baiting with the alleged hoax attack that drew support and attention from celebrities and liberal politicos.
But Black Lives Matter sees the situation very differently and leaders were sure to establish a party line ahead of the jury’s verdict, FOX News reported.
“As abolitionists, we approach situations of injustice with love and align ourselves with our community. Because we got us,” read a statement Abdullah posted to the Black Lives Matter website.
“So let’s be clear: we love everybody in our community,” Abdullah continued. “It’s not about a trial or a verdict decided in a white supremacist charade, it’s about how we treat our community when corrupt systems are working to devalue their lives.”
She went on to say that the trial wouldn’t even be taking place in “an abolitionist society” where “our communities would not have to fight and suffer to prove our worth.”
“Instead, we find ourselves, once again, being forced to put our lives and our value in the hands of judges and juries operating in a system that is designed to oppress us, while continuing to face a corrupt and violent police department, which has proven time and again to have no respect for our lives,” the activist claimed on the website.
Then she went on to explain why law enforcement can never be trusted.
“In our commitment to abolition, we can never believe police, especially the Chicago Police Department (CPD) over Jussie Smollett, a Black man who has been courageously present, visible, and vocal in the struggle for Black freedom,” Abdullah wrote. “While policing at-large is an irredeemable institution, CPD is notorious for its long and deep history of corruption, racism, and brutality.”
Both of Smollett’s accusers are black.
She went on to claim “Chicago police consistently demonstrate that they are among the worst of the worst. Police lie and Chicago police lie especially,” the website read.
The Black Lives Matter statement ended with a commitment to support Smollett by wrapping “our arms around those who do the work to usher in Black freedom and, by extension, freedom for everyone else.”
Holly Matkin
