Recall LADA George Gascon
By Joseph P. Charney
In a recent op-ed, LA District Attorney George Gascon emphasized the need to increase financial support for victims of violent crimes. He says he wants more money for therapy, medical support, burial expenses and other needs — to enable victims and their families to “heal”. Good, except, he also suggests that victims are often ambivalent in their pursuit of justice, intimating that the DA must follow their wishes: “There are countless people in our community who have experienced serious physical harm. Sometimes, they want a prosecution to occur, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they want a prosecutor to seek a long sentence and sometimes they just want an apology and an admission of wrongdoing.”
This statement illustrates why we must recall this DA, for the very fact he either doesn’t understand his role, or never intended to fulfill it. When an individual is seriously assaulted, raped or abused by a spouse, it is the DA, not the victim who decides if a prosecution occurs or what the appropriate punishment should be. What separates the civil and criminal law is that a violation of the latter, is a violation against the entire community. The DA’s enforcement should reflect the legislative intent to prevent future violence against the particular victim as well as future potential victims. While the Prosecutor should consider the victim’s input, she need not follow it. Even if a seriously injured and abused spouse would be “satisfied” with an “apology”, a competent prosecutor must not be. Similarly it is not acceptable for a victim of gang violence to determine police involvement. Gang violence is not a private affair to be settled like a breach of contract. If Gascon truly cared about victims, he would prosecute and incapacitate violent individuals with the sentencing enhancement provisions of the California Penal Code. He would enforce lower level crimes where he has jurisdiction, to help deter more serious crime as well as protecting a community’s quality of life. He would represent the families of murder victims during parole hearing and not abandon them to seek justice without his office’s support.
Gascon has no intention of protecting our communities. He is an ideologue who has demonstrated contempt for the office he leads and for law enforcement. It is no surprise that the only violence he identifies in the entire opinion piece is “police violence”.
We should no longer accept the crime wave he has helped unleash. We need a DA who focuses on incapacitating criminals instead of raising money to bury their victims.
