Fani Willis, the Georgia prosecutor leading the investigation into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, was raised primarily by her father John Floyd, a former high-ranking member of the Black Panther Party who had negative views of police.
In interviews, Floyd described viewing the LAPD as an “occupying army” when he was growing up and suggested he believed conspiracy theories about the CIA being involved in Malcolm X’s assassination.
“I have an absolutely amazing father and I’m very privileged to have been raised by such a great man,” Willis said. “My father taught me that every single person is entitled to dignity and respect no matter who they are — no matter their race, religion or socio-economic status.
“And those things run through my veins,” she said. “It’s the way I try to treat people every single day: They’re entitled to dignity and respect no matter who they are.”
While little has been publicly known about Floyd’s background until now, he helped found both the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and a faction of the Black Panthers, and knew figures like Huey Newton.
“I grew up here and I have remarked to myself: As many car break-ins, house break-ins, assaults, I never the whole time I grew up in Los Angeles ever remember anyone calling the police department, because we considered LAPD to be the enemy,” Floyd said.
“We thought they were nothing but trouble, they weren’t there to help us. I must have been 20 years old before I saw ‘to protect and serve’ (the LAPD motto) and wondered in my own mind, ‘Is that what police are supposed to do?’ because we saw them as an occupying army,” he said.
Willis credits her father’s values for her career but did not directly address his Panther involvement when asked.
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