Bob Marley’s granddaughter, Donisha Prendergast, had an unpleasant experience with cops in California last week.
Donisha Prendergast and a few of her friends were briefly detained by police officers in California just as they were leaving an Airbnb. The group was in the state for the Kaya Fest where the Marley brothers performed. Prendergast posted two videos on Instagram showing the unpleasant running with four police officers who responded to a 911 call from a neighbor of the house they were staying in.
“We cannot remove ourselves from situations that continue to implicate our brothers and sisters in a spiritual, physical, emotional and psychological war,” Prendergast said. “It is the inaction of those who could have and didn’t that has left our world in the state it is today. Our blood is shared, so are our joys and pains. When the rain falls, it doesn’t just fall on one man’s house top… So don’t you forget who you are and where you stand in the struggle.”
This is the latest in a series of similar incidents in the United States where cops were called in to arrest people of color. Just last month two African American men were arrested at a Starbucks coffee shop while waiting for a friend.
Donisha Prendergast is the daughter of Sharon Marley who is Bob and Rita Marley’s daughter. “Got surrounded by the police for being black in a white neighbourhood,” she explained on Instagram. “I’m sad and irritated to see that fear is still the first place police officers go in their pursuit to serve and protect, to the point that protocol supersedes their ability to have discernment. Many have suffered and died in moments like these. That’s a crazy reality check.”
Prendergast says she and her friends were heading to a socially conscious event that they organized in California and the cops showed up just as they were leaving the house they rented.
