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Judge orders return of photographed legal documents taken by officers in raid of BLM attorney’s home

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 30, 2024, 10:48 am CST

A Los Angeles judge has ordered police to return or destroy photographs that they took of legal documents in a search last week of the home of an attorney representing a leader of Black Lives Matter.

Judge Rupert Byrdsong issued the order Friday, report the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times.

Lawyer Dermot Givens, 67, said about a dozen Los Angeles police officers in tactical gear surrounded his townhouse Jan. 23, showed him a partial warrant that had his address but no name, and proceeded to ransack the home.

Givens was at first ousted from his home, but when he returned, he saw police photographing documents from the case of Melina Abdullah, the co-founder of the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter. She has sued police for allegedly mishandling a response to a false report of an emergency at her home in 2020.

The documents were on Givens’ kitchen table.

The warrant sought guns, ammunition, identity theft materials, cameras, lock-picking equipment and electronic devices, according to the Los Angeles Times. Police told Givens that they were looking for a younger man named “Tyler,” and an Apple AirTag near his home led to the police response.

Givens does not know anyone by that name, and he has lived in the home for more than 20 years. He told the AP that police “know exactly who I am and where I live,” and this is the latest instance of police harassment for his lawsuits against the Los Angeles Police Department.

A Los Angeles police spokesperson told the Los Angeles Times and the AP that it could not comment because of open criminal and internal-affairs investigations.