Jason Reedy: The Black Man KDL Attacked — Highland Park

The activist, world traveler, and dad who brings his child to City Hall to speak truth to power

Jason Reedy, as you will hear, is an intelligent, thoughtful Angeleno who cares for his mind, body, and spirit.

He’s a well-read vegan marathon runner who can easily talk about Christianity or Islam as well as world history. On top of that he’s a kind, funny, and devoted parent who even takes his toddler to City Hall — which annoys certain folks for some reason.

We sat down at the Robinson Space in Virgil Village and discussed the very active activist group he belongs to, getting attacked by Kevin De Leon at a Christmas toy giveaway, and his one TV addiction: 90 Day Fiance.

Listen to the entire convo by clicking the play button, or enjoy a few of the edited highlights below.

Tony Pierce: What made you get involved in People’s City Council?

Jason Reedy: The reason I joined was I felt like they were an organization that aligned with my values and my principles. I had done a lot of different interruptions of events with people like Ricci and so I thought that we would be a good fit.

I was invited in February. I took my time. I wanted to gain an understanding of the organization, an understanding of who was in the organization, and what other things have happened since their inception. And so once I got that down, I joined.

Let’s rewind a little bit. Are you a native Californian?

I am not. I am originally from Newport News, Virginia. I only lived there for five years. My dad was in the military. So we moved around a lot. I’ve lived in five different countries.

Jason’s love of traveling never wore off. Here he is in Japan, chilling in the head temple of the Tenryū-ji branch of the Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism.

Which countries?

The first five years of my life were in Newport News, then we moved to Pakistan for two years. We were in Thailand for two years after that. We came back and lived in Washington D.C. And then we did three years middle school in Bolivia and then four years in Morocco.

Am I crazy to think traveling the world, like it sounds like you did, was a great thing for a young person?

Oh, yeah, it’s the best thing. It’s the absolute best thing — being able to visit all these different cultures — and have an understanding of different viewpoints around the world.

The greatest gift my parents could have given me was the opportunity to live amongst all these different people.

Having experience of hanging with so many “different” people was perhaps great training for Jason for being in LA where some members of the LAPD champion a certain former president who is facing over 90 felonies. His Twitter account features many encounters he has with a wide range of Angelenos.

So when I hear actors, for example, talk about how they were “military brats” and it was a horrible situation, because you can’t keep friends and you’re always the new kid in school… it sounds like you’re saying the opposite, that it was a huge benefit for you.

It was a huge benefit. I mean, you’re always sad when you leave. You cry and then you get over it after a couple of weeks and you go and meet new friends, especially when you’re moving — my dad had embassy duty.

He worked as part of the Defense Attache Office, which was essentially like working with the defense people in those different countries. And so when you would move there, there was already an established American community.

Jason with an AK on the Khyber Pass in Pakistan. He says, “at that time, as Americans you couldn’t venture out by yourselves so we had these armed guards with us. Before the picture was taken my parents said I wanted to hold the AK and one of the guards happily obliged.”

So for example, like in Pakistan, we lived on a compound — we weren’t just living out and about. So there was literally a mini city or mini town. We had our own movie theater, pool, school, baseball field and little park to run in and stuff.

So when did you move to LA?

2012. I’ve lived in LA more years than I’ve lived anywhere else.

What brought you out here?

Jason with his now-famous son, Tsehay, and his wife, Jess.

My fiance… I call her my fiance… my partner. We’ve been together 16 years.

She got into FIDM [the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising]. She applied to fashion schools in Miami, New York and LA and this is the one that she chose.

Are you into fashion as well?

I used to be yes, very much. Not so much anymore.

I mean, you got a good look going. This LA t-shirt I’ve never seen before.

Fun fact: In 1968 the Southern California chapter of the Black Panthers was founded by Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter in Los Angeles. Also known as “the Mayor of the Ghetto,” Bunch helped start began the Free Breakfast for Children program which provided meals to the poor in the community. Carter was murdered in 1969 at just 26 years old.

Thank you. This actually comes from a brother up in San Francisco. His grandfather was — his father or grandfather was — in the Black Panther Party. And so he creates Black Panther- related jackets and t-shirts.

And he’s Ethiopian, so there’s that connect. I’m also Ethiopian.

When I go to Little Ethiopia (the hardest block to drive in LA), is it legit? Is that what real Ethiopian food tastes like?

Absolutely. Yeah.

So have you gone to Ethiopia too?

I’ve been in Ethiopia. Yes. I haven’t been in many years. I’ve been twice. I think the last time was in ‘97.

You really are a world traveler.

Oh, yeah. I’ve been to — I think my last count was like 35 countries.

Let’s talk about your child.

Last week Jason filed a lawsuit against KDL and the City of LA claiming the city didn’t provide enough security in last year’s toy giveaway where the councilman attacked him. Because this podcast was conducted in late September, we didn’t discuss the suit. So you can read about it here.

What’s his name?

His name is Tsehay.

What does Tsehay mean?

So Tsehay means the sun in Amharic which is a language from Ethiopia. My mom passed in 2018. Her name was Aster, she was named after the flower, so we thought it’d be very cool to name him after the sun as a way to pay homage to her.

How do you pronounce Tsehay? The Wiggles made a song!

So you and your son are in the news because you did something crazy. The first crazy thing that you did was you went to City Hall to air your grievances, which politicians used to say Angelenos didn’t do enough of.

But then when people started doing it, they’re like, “not like that.”

And one of the “not like that” is bringing your infant child — how old is Tsehay?

He’s like a toddler now, I guess. 14 months.

So he’s a Leo?

He’s a Cancer. Born on the same day as Mike Tyson.

So you bring this beautiful little one-year-old child to City Hall. Tell me the story.

Essentially what happened was we were at a police commission meeting… we disrupted saying, you know, “this is bullshit, we should be able to comment.”

So we made a big hoopla and we’re kicked out. And after that, Chief Moore insinuated that I use my child as “a tactic” when it comes to disruption of public meetings and said there was an escalation of tactics on our behalf.

Chief Moore saying bringing a child to City Hall is “escalating tactics.”

Meanwhile, we’ve been doing this for as long as people have been going to the Commission.

The LAPC Fails Coalition — which is BLMLA, Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, White People for Black Lives and the Los Angeles Community Action Network — have been going to these commission meetings for almost a decade. So this isn’t new stuff that’s happening.

And so yeah, he made that comment. The next day, we were in council because of this billion dollars that the city council was was wanting to give the LAPD.

The extra billion.

The extra billion, exactly, and my child was in the back. He was being a baby, you know, walking around doing his thing, interacting with folks, you know, having a good time.

And the lead officer, the supervising officer Dennis Clark, came over and said he was being disruptive.

My child has been in federal courtrooms while we were doing court support for the Vargas family over the summer. That judge never determined that he was being disruptive.

I’ve been in LA County courtrooms, for example, for some of Ricci stuff. The judge never said he was being disruptive.

I’ve been to other city council meetings, they’ve never said that my child was being disruptive.

And oftentimes in a city council, it’s the person sitting in that chair of power, usually Paul Krikorian, that determines that something as small as coughing or holding up a mirror is a disruption.

There’s various other things that we’ve done over the course of these last couple of months that he’s determined is a disruption. But even he didn’t say the boy was disruption.

But this officer chose to target me because I am very effective at exposing the LAPD and I’m not quiet about it.

Let me ask you about Mayor Karen Bass.

Okay.

I assume that most Black people were so excited to have a Black candidate for mayor, especially a female Black candidate. We didn’t want a white billionaire to be the mayor who was super pro cop.

During a mayoral debate, Jason yelled at Karen Bass, knowing she would increase the LAPD budget. But demanded that she stopped doing it. She quickly gave them all the extra monies they have asked for and kept Chief Moore as Chief of Police — exactly as Rick Caruso would have done.

And yet, when Karen Bass became mayor, it’s like, “how is she any different than what we feared?” Do you feel that way?

Yes, she isn’t any different. We were trying to expose that throughout the campaign.

So you were Team Gina, then, I assume?

Yes I voted for Gina [in the primary]. I did not vote for mayor in the general election.

Because you were like, “they’re the same person”?

Another Black Angeleno upset at Mayor Bass is William Gude of Film The Police who has been very critical of the mayor’s curious Inside Safe homeless program.

To me they’re the same. When it came to policing, when it came to the unhoused, they are the exact same.

A lot of people have this view of Karen Bass as being this progressive and a lot of times she’s had to fight back against this. She’s been labeled as Defund The Police candidate. She’s absolutely not.

She was one of the people that was pushing the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act… but basically pushing for hundreds of millions of dollars to go to police for training and these other things.

LAPD officer turned politician, Joe Buscaino, suggesting Jason should have the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services called on him for bringing his child to City Hall. What sort of training would Mayor Bass recommend for Joey?

And so she was already doing that as a representative in the House. And so it was no question that she was going to come here to Los Angeles and do the same thing as mayor.

Sometimes when I hear politicians do those things and say those things, I just assume that they’re doing it because they feel like that’s the only way that they can get elected.

Why is KDL so angry all the time? Look no further than the LA Mayoral Primary where he barely got more votes than Gina Viola who was not invited to all the debates and who rarely got coverage in the media. Also, LA is a city with a majority of Latinos and yet he, the only Latino in the race, couldn’t even pull 8% of the vote.

But she could have been different. There was so much energy behind Karen Bass. There was so much love for her because she was born here in LA… she was a true community organizer.

So she could have easily taken all these white libs that follow her and love her, and could have easily run and said, “hey, you know what, maybe the police don’t need an extra billion dollars. Maybe we can look at alternatives to police.”

And it would have been more palatable to these white liberals coming out of the mouth of someone like Karen Bass.

OK let’s talk about Kevin de Leon. I saw you get attacked by him while he’s wearing a Santa hat. There’s two things that are going on.

On one hand, it looks like you literally want to be in his face. Fine. And you want to push the boundaries of personal space, fine.

But he took it a step further. And it looked like he wanted to choke you.

And then when you were down on the ground, he wanted to like flip you over. And that’s where it gets a little crazy because that’s not self defense. That room was filled with people, your hands were up in the air.

And even if you are nose-to-nose with a guy, that doesn’t mean that he gets a free shot at you?

Did I portray that correctly?

I’ll say that I am in the business of making those in power who create harm within our community — I want to make them feel uncomfortable. They feel too comfortable and that’s the reason why they act the way they act.

The fact that Kevin de Leon felt that it was appropriate to — two months after that racist audio scandal where he compared compared to black child to a handbag, where he sat there and laughed at these different racist comments, but specifically around around a black child — and think that he can do that at this toy giveaway is bullshit.

And we weren’t gonna let that happen.

We got criticism from folks saying, “well, you shouldn’t have interrupted a kid’s event.”

Well, he shouldn’t have been at a kid’s event to begin with.

Earlier that morning he saw the anger and saw how the community still wanted him to resign and he decided that night to go to that event.

I don’t want any type of physical confrontation. I wanted to make sure to say, “yo, you’re not welcome. And you need to resign.”

Jason is no stranger to holding the mic at rallies.

This was actually the first time that people could really catch him out in public because he’d been hiding. Here’s someone that was on this Apology Tour, but he never came to Black LA.

He went down to do an interview with Tavis Smiley — which we were outside of his studios for — but he never held a community forum, or tried to make amends with the Black community in any real, concrete way.

Tavis Smiley grilled KDL when the disgraced councilman went on KBLA to say how he wanted to atone by listening. KDL has never gone to Black town hall meetings to listen. He has stopped tweeting and never responds on Facebook to any critics.

So when I showed up there, my whole intention was to say, “you shouldn’t be at this event. And we’re going to tell you what’s up. Resign, you’re racist. You said that shit about a Black child and you shouldn’t be around children.”

So when we made our way out of the auditorium, one of his goons, who I recently found out was from Soledad Enrichment Action, which I’m not dissing that organization as a whole, but I’m just saying that’s where he works.

Jason’s lawsuit against KDL and the City.

He’s getting paid. He bumped me out of the way. Kevin de Leon made his way into that exit room and, I guess, wanted to make sure the doors closed behind them.

And as I have my hands up, I get pushed back. And so I’m not falling into a room, backwards, into a room that I have never been into, so I turned to catch myself.

And as I catch myself, this motherfucker grabs me and pushes me out of the room, which you can clearly see in the video. A lot of people, I guess, have blinders on when they watch that part of the video.

And then he pulled me into the room. And so that’s the reason why I immediately put my hands up. Yes, because I’m trying to show like, I’m not being the aggressor here.

I put my hands up. I’m not here to — I’m not fighting this guy. I’m not interested in fighting you. So I put my hands up and then he’s got his staff members and his supporters grabbing me.

He grabbed me around the collar. He dragged me down the hallway.

That is just the tip of the iceberg, as they say.

Click the play button to hear the whole episode.

Follow Jason on Twitter here + Follow the People’s City Council here.

So far we have interviewed now four members of the People’s City Council: Ricci, Albert, Sabrina, and now Jason. If you liked Jason’s story, you will probably like theirs too.

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