Michael Latt Dies In Home Invasion; Suspect ID’d In Studio Consultant & Activist’s Killing At Mid-Wilshire Residence

Dominic Patten
·2 min read
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The suspect in the killing of former Netflix staffer and Array consultant Michael Latt this week has been revealed by the LAPD, as has the victim himself.

Police say Jameelah Elena Michl, 36, was arrested on Latt’s doorstep soon after the fatal shooting of the veteran studio operative and activist at his Mid-Wilshire home at 6 p.m. on Monday. Apparently living nearby in her car, the homeless woman seemingly invaded the residence of Latt and his fiancée. Michl did not make any effort to leave the scene of the crime, law enforcement officials confirmed.

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Latt died soon afterward at nearby hospital. He was 33.

The LAPD tells Deadline that no motive has emerged so far in the ongoing investigation. Michl was arrested by officers from Wilshire Division and remained in custody on $3 million bail. The District Attorney’s office has charged her with murder and burglary, with a firearm enhancement.

Latt’s mother, Michelle Satter, founded the Sundance Institute Directors and Screenwriters Lab in 1981. She will be honored with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at next year’s Governors Awards. Satter took to social media this morning to mourn her child.

Having formed social impact group Lead with Love in 2019, Michael Latt also was communications director and political adviser for Oscar winner and John Wick star Common’s nonprofit Imagine Justice from late 2016 to mid-2021.

A manager at Netflix from April-November 2021, Latt served as a consultant for Ava DuVernay’s Array Now, Warner Bros Pictures’ Multicultural Marketing Department and Annapurna Pictures’ If Beale Street Could Talk over the past few years. Before that, in addition to working for the Sundance Institute as a digital content producer and marketing adviser from 2014-18, Latt put in time in the marketing departments of the Campaign for Black Male Achievement, Magnolia Pictures’ James Baldwin-fueled 2016 documentary I Am Not Your Negro, Fox Searchlight’s Birth of a Nation from Nate Parker, Sony and the Weinstein Company.

As more information about Latt’s death became known in the past 24 hours, Black List founder Franklin Leonard paid tribute to his friend Wednesday on social media.

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