LOS ANGELES – Today, the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder released the results of another 29,672 ballots from the March 3rd primary, leaving approximately 34,328 total ballots left to be counted. Every vote must be counted, but the number of outstanding ballots cannot alter the result. Former District Attorney and Assistant Chief of the LAPD, George Gascón, will advance to the November runoff and face incumbent District Attorney Jackie Lacey.
“A majority of Angelenos rejected the status-quo in favor of a modern system of justice,” said former District Attorney and Assistant Chief of the LAPD, George Gascón. “Over the next 228 days our mission will be to convince every voter that healthier, safer communities are a product of leaders willing to lean on data and science. We can no longer afford-either socially or economically-for our barometer of justice to simply revolve around punishment. This dated approach has come at untold costs to victims, taxpayers and rehabilitation, and it has not made us safer. My record demonstrates that we can reduce crime, incarceration, and system costs simultaneously, and if elected in November we will do it again.
“Now more than ever, Los Angeles families and communities deserve competent and ethical stewardship from our public servants. We need leaders who can keep us safe by investing our increasingly strained taxpayer dollars in compassionate, effective approaches that address mental health and victims services instead of wasting millions on outdated schemes that did not work in the 1980s and do not work now. Between a global pandemic and near-weekly exposés of government corruption, Los Angeles voters want and deserve leaders they can trust. Now is the time for that change.”
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George Gascón grew up in Los Angeles after his family immigrated from Cuba. An army veteran, Gascón served as a Los Angeles Police Department Officer for 30 years, rising to the rank of Assistant Chief of Operations. In 2006 he became Chief of Police in Mesa, Arizona, where he stood up to the hateful and anti-immigrant policies of then Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. In 2009, then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom appointed Gascón Chief of Police. Newsom turned to Gascón again in 2011 when he tapped him to be District Attorney to fill the seat vacated by an outgoing Kamala Harris who had been elected Attorney General. During his tenure Gascón implemented reforms that are being duplicated across the country while overseeing violent crime and homicides drop to rates not seen in 50 years. After being elected to two terms, Gascón returned to Los Angeles to care for his elderly mother and to be closer to his two daughters and grandchildren in Long Beach. Gascón is married to Fabiola Kramsky, a three-time Emmy Award winning journalist and recipient of the “Premio Nacional de Periodismo,” the highest recognition given to journalists in Mexico.
For more information about George Gascón go to www.GeorgeGascon.org.