LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge granted a request Thursday to allow former District Attorney Jackie Lacey’s husband to enter into a diversion program after he aimed at a gun a three unarmed protesters outside his home last year.
David Lacey, 67, was charged with three counts of assault last August, about five months after he opened the door to his family’s Granada Hills home with a handgun aimed at the demonstrators, who rang his doorbell as part of a predrawn protest against his wife.
Under the terms of the diversion agreement approved by Superior Court Judge David Stuart, which was first reported by the Los Angeles Times last month, Lacey must perform 100 hours of community service and attend anger management and gun safety classes. He also is barred from possessing a firearm for the duration of the agreement, which lasts 18-months.
If Lacey had been convicted, each assault count carried a maximum of one year in county jail. The state attorney general’s office is handling the case due to the conflict of interest Jackie Lacey had as district attorney.
Melina Abdullah, the co-founder of the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter and one of the people held at gunpoint by Lacey last year, has previously decried the arrangement as too lenient and called on the judge to bar Lacey from possessing firearms.
She has also said Lacey was being handled with “kid gloves” and argued a defendant without his political connections might have faced felony charges.
“It means that my life, the threat that he posed to my life, doesn’t mean anything,” she said.
Last March, Abdullah was leading a group of about 30 protesters angry about Jackie Lacey’s repeated failure to meet with Black activists who had challenged her record of rarely prosecuting law enforcement officers in the shooting deaths of unarmed men and women. The group was outside the Laceys’ Granada Hills, banging on drums and chanting before 6 a.m., when Abdullah, Justin Marks and Dahlia Ferlito approached the family’s front door.
Video taken at the scene shows David Lacey answering the door with a handgun pointed in the direction of the protesters.
“I will shoot you,” he says in response to a question from Abdullah, with his finger on the weapon’s trigger.
Los Angeles police were soon called to the scene. Jackie Lacey held a news conference later in the day where she apologized for her husband’s actions but also noted the incident followed a series of threats made against her as she sought a third term in office.
One of the threats was serious enough that it was referred to the Long Beach Police Department for further investigation, but ultimately, no charges were filed.
The incident happened one day before the Democratic primary in a contentious district attorney’s race. Jackie Lacey was unable to hit the 50% plus one vote threshold she needed to win the primary outright and ended up losing to former San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón in the general election last November.
The proposed terms of the diversion agreement were first presented at an April court hearing, but Lacey’s attorney, Samuel Tyre, asked for more time to discuss the arrangement with his client.
Lacey owns just the one firearm he brandished during the confrontation with protesters, and he , surrendered that weapon to LAPD a few days after the incident, according to Tyre.
