‘NOT COINCIDENTAL’

BLM Leader Targeted in Swatting Incident 2 Days After Filing Swatting Suit

An unknown caller pretending to be BLM leader Melina Abdullah’s young son summoned a police unit to Abdullah’s home.

A co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles who announced on Tuesday that she had filed a suit against the city of Los Angeles over the police response to a false emergency call made to her home last year was targeted by another such “swatting” call on Thursday. LAPD officials said a unit was summoned to Melina Abdullah’s home by an unknown caller claiming to be her young son. The caller claimed that Abdullah had overdosed on pills. Authorities, wary under the circumstances, were able to get a neighbor to contact Abdullah after she didn’t answer a knock at her door. Abdullah said the Thursday call’s “timing is not coincidental,” given her suit. Her filing accuses the department of mishandling its August response to a caller who claimed he was holding people hostage at Abdullah’s home. Officers surrounded her residence with guns drawn until Abdullah walked out with her hands up, according to the court documents. The LAPD’s investigation into the affair has suggested “a possible nexus to a professional group of cyber hackers” criminally coordinating such calls, but the department has yet to announce definitive conclusions.