Another Black Lives Matter protest possible at police commission meeting

Monday, July 11, 2016
Another Black Lives Matter protest possible at police commission meeting
Black Lives Matter organizers say they are planning yet another protest depending on the outcome of a police commission meeting on Tuesday.

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Black Lives Matter organizers say they are planning another protest depending on the outcome of a police commission meeting on Tuesday.

Activists said they will be at the meeting, where the commission is slated to make a decision on whether the use of force by officers was appropriate in the deadly 2015 shooting of 30-year-old Redel Jones, a black woman.

Jones was shot when police said she advanced toward them with a knife. One witness disputes this account, saying Jones was running away from police when she was shot.

Black Lives Matter organizers said they will protest if the officers are found to be not at fault.

Sunday night, crowds of Black Lives Matter supporters took to the streets of Inglewood to protest the recent police shootings of black men in Minnesota and Louisiana.

"The frustration of the community came to my mind. The hurt and the pain that we share as a collective community came to my mind," said Jasime Abdullah, a Black Lives Matter activist.

Organizers said they did not expect nearly 2,000 people to show up.

Inglewood Mayor James Butts said a conscious decision was made to have police at the ready but not highly visible.

"We had a couple platoons with appropriate gear staged if there was lawlessness, but we didn't want to bring them out in contact with the protesters," Butts said.

Protestors stopped traffic at West Manchester Boulevard and La Cienega Boulevard and also briefly stopped traffic on the 405 Freeway on Sunday.

"No one was arrested. No one was hurt, and there were no incidents," Butts said. "And you spent so much less money doing it this way than we would have with a high-profile enforcement operation."

The police commission meeting is expected to start at 9 a.m. Tuesday. The Los Angeles Police Department said it will have sufficient officers present at the meeting.