GEORGE GASCóN HAS MADE US LESS SAFE
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RISING CRIME
The California Department of Justice crime statistics for 2023 were released this month...
"Gascón's statements that crime has dropped during his tenure have turned out to be an entire lie," Hochman said Tuesday. "He is trying to manipulate those statistics in his favor. Turns out it's failing."
Hochman's claims are based on the latest California DOJ stats and compare crimes committed in 2023 to those in 2020, the year Gascón took office.
During those three years, violent crimes in L.A. County rose 12%, robberies are up 16%, property crimes are up 20%, shoplifting is up 133%, auto theft is up 23% and burglaries are up 8%.
In each single year, violent crimes, property crimes, shoplifting are up either double digits, single digits or in some cases with hate crime, triple digits," Hochman told Eyewitness News. "Gascón cannot dodge or gaslight the public."
One Los Angeles-based former prosecutor told Newsweek that DA staff have become demoralized by policies that put repeat offenders back on the streets without having to post bail. Viral videos of thieves openly looting California stores has added to the sense of outrage...
A survey released by the Public Policy Institute of California in February 2023 found that "an overwhelming majority of California adults say violence and street crime is either a big problem or at least somewhat of a problem."
...When he took office in 2020, Gascon issued a special directive that prevents prosecutors in his office from seeking the death penalty, sentencing enhancements or cash bail in non-violent cases.
That quickly drew widespread criticism as a blanket policy that coddled criminals and ignored victims.
This year, homicides, violent crimes and auto theft are rising and Gascon is facing a second recall...
...A recent rash of mob-like robberies has shocked Southern California residents. Security cameras caught large groups of looters breaking into stores and stealing merchandise.
A rash of package thefts from freight trains passing slowly through downtown Los Angeles has raised a fundamental question facing this city and others: how to balance attempts at criminal justice reform with the need for crime prevention.
“What the hell is going on?” asked an exasperated Gov. Gavin Newsom last week when he joined an effort to clear the cargo detritus from the train tracks.
Railroad behemoth Union Pacific, in large part, blames the thefts on Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón...
Criminals Released Early
Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón’s reform-minded outlook on juvenile justice seemed made for someone like Denmonne Lee.
When he was 16, Lee took part in an Antelope Valley gas station robbery that ended in the death of former Marine John Ruh. Lee, who was acquainted with the victim, had planned the 2018 robbery and provided a weapon to his co-defendant, according to court records. Although Lee wasn’t the shooter, he was charged with murder.
But when Gascón took office two years later, as Lee’s case was making its way through the court system, he barred prosecutors from trying juveniles as adults...
After being released to a halfway house last June, Lee enrolled in community college and found work at a local nonprofit.
And then, in April, he was arrested and charged with playing a major role in another homicide.
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A convicted murderer, released from custody after serving just six years of a 50-year prison sentence when an aide to Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón refused to call witnesses during a disposition hearing, was arrested this week, allegedly with a gun and drugs, after leading sheriff’s deputies on a three-mile car chase.
Andrew Cachu, 25, of Palmdale faces one felony count each of fleeing a pursuing peace officer’s motor vehicle and driving against traffic, possession of a firearm by a felon, and possession of a controlled substance with a firearm as well as two counts of possession for sale of a controlled substance, methamphetamine and cocaine, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
He also is charged with one misdemeanor count each of possession of cannabis for sale and driving under the influence of a drug.
Cachu, booked into Los Angeles County Jail on $500,000 bail, was arraigned Thursday, July 21.
POLICE MURDERED
Three men were arrested after they were accused of committing a home invasion robbery Monday night at a home on the 15200 block of Greenleaf Street...
According to Gascón, at least two of the men posted bail soon after their arrest...
The suspects had previous records for prior burglaries and probation for firearm possession.
Monday night’s break-in reopened the discussion of crime in the county, with Gascón’s critics saying his office has taken a “soft” approach to handling crime.
The family of an El Monte police officer who was slain this year has filed a notice of claim seeking millions in damages against Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón and the L.A. County Probation Department.
Janine Paredes — whose husband, Michael, was one of two officers gunned down during a confrontation at a motel in June — filed the notice of claim Wednesday, blaming both Gascón’s criminal justice reform policies and lax supervision by the probation department for putting the suspected gunman, Justin Flores, in the officers’ path on the day of the deadly clash.
The widows and children of two El Monte Police Department officers murdered by a man on probation have filed wrongful death lawsuits against Los Angeles County, District Attorney George Gascón, and the Probation Department.
The suits claim one of Gascón's reform policies, which prohibited prosecutors from alleging certain prior convictions in order to enhance sentences under the three strikes law, caused the officers' killer to be released on probation prior to the murders, rather than being sent to prison.
"The second strike should have been pursued, and if it had been, he'd be in prison," said attorney David Ring, who represents the family of Officer Joseph Santana.
"These two officers would still be alive," he said.
FAILED
LEADERSHIP
Gascón has been named in more than a dozen other civil suits, nearly all of which were filed by his own employees. In total, 20 prosecutors have accused Gascón of workplace retaliation, alleging he pushed them out of leadership positions or into undesirable assignments because they challenged his progressive policies or pointed out portions of his Day 1 directives they consider illegal.
George Gascón held a press conference Monday in Downtown Los Angeles to address the slew of smash-and-grab robberies and burglaries in L.A. The presser followed viral news over the weekend that thieves armed with bear spray and dressed in face masks and hooded sweatshirts had stormed a Nordstrom store in the Westfield Topanga shopping center.
The Topanga mall robbery alone netted the crooks over $300,000 in stolen loot, making it the second flash-mob robbery to surpass that mark in the past week. Other flash-mob robberies recently occurred at the Yves Saint Laurent store at the Americana at Brand, the Bloomingdale's at Westfield Century City, and the Nike store in East L.A.
The Gascón presser was about cold-case murders in L.A., but the theme quickly turned to the hot-button issue of the robberies. But when reporters asked Gascón to respond to critics of his "soft-on-crime" approach, the DA lashed out at the media, and the presser nearly went off the rails.
As George Gascón closes in on his one year anniversary as Los Angeles County's district attorney, another controversial move by his office is raising questions about his criminal justice system reform policies.
This month, his office used a legal technicality that will lead to the release of Andrew Cachu, a convicted murderer and documented gang member who was sentenced to 50 years in prison.
Cachu was convicted of gunning down 41-year-old Louis Amela outside a Palmdale restaurant in 2015. At the time, Cachu was a few weeks shy of his 18th birthday, but was tried as an adult.
An attorney for the Amela family says they are outraged about the release and shocked that the District Attorney's Office failed to even consult with them about the move.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office is in turmoil.
Prosecutors opposed to DA George Gascón’s reform agenda and unhappy with his management practices overwhelmingly support his removal — just 16 months after he assumed office.
Gascón is seeking to make the criminal justice system less punitive. He says his policies are designed to end mass incarceration and racial disparities, and that he wants to turn the system “upside down.”
“There’s a lot of us who are dispirited and feel beat down,” Deputy DA Ryan Erlich told us.
“It’s horrible. The morale sucks,” said one longtime prosecutor who did not want his name used because he feared retaliation. “It’s not a pleasant place.” He said Gascón is “dismantling the criminal justice system in L.A.”
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Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Tatiana Chahoian is accusing her boss, District Attorney George Gascón, of resorting to "mafia tactics..."
On Monday, February 26, 2024, Chahoian blew the whistle on how prosecutors are being urged not to pursue charges related to reckless driving, street racing and street takeovers.
LGBTQ voters and others were dumbstruck last week when Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón announced that, in addition to several other sweeping reforms, he'd be ending sentencing enhancements for criminals, including those found to have committed hate crimes.
A longtime prosecutor in the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office has accused District Attorney George Gascón of deliberately neglecting issues affecting the Jewish community in Los Angeles and discriminating against Jewish employees.
“This is the first time I lack confidence in our office’s ability to treat Jewish victims equally,” Schirn told the Jewish Journal after the violence at the Adas Tora...
“When it comes to Jewish victims, Gascón refuses to make the same commitment to justice,” Schirn said. “After more than 30 years here, I see young Jewish attorneys constantly worried about this administration. It is my responsibility to encourage them to speak up. They fear they won’t be treated fairly because they’re Jewish and see their careers stalling under Gascón.”
"Crimes do not go up or down because of who the district attorney is. If that were the case, then we would blame district attorneys around other counties, or, quite frankly, even my predecessor, who actually, during her eight years, saw an increase in crime..."
"...unless there is an arrest, a prosecutor cannot prosecute. We don't patrol communities. We don't make arrests. We react [to] the work of the police..."
A man arrested in the slaying of a transient in Pacoima was released from prison last year after serving just eight years of a life sentence for a double murder because District Attorney George Gascón refused to transfer his case from juvenile to adult court, the Southern California News Group has learned.
Victor Bibiano, 30, was taken into custody last month for the April 16 killing of 42-year-old Mario Rodriguez, who was found shot at a transient encampment at Dronefield Avenue and Terra Bella Street in the foothill area of Pacoima.
Bibiano was 17 when he and two co-defendants were convicted in adult court in 2012 in the killing of two rival Pacoima gang members and the wounding of a third in 2009. Bibiano was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for a special-circumstance double murder, attempted murder, and shooting a firearm at an inhabited dwelling, as well as gun and gang enhancements, according to court records.
He was released from prison in 2021.
