LOS ANGELES – Today, George Gascón released the following statement following newly released public disclosures showing the Police Officers Research Association of California and California Correctional Peace Officers Association having poured $500,000 each into committees supporting Jackie Lacey.
“Jackie Lacey has demonstrated that she is incapable of policing the police, and these unions are going to spend millions to make sure that does not change,” said former District Attorney and Assistant Chief of the LAPD, George Gascón. “The namesake of the committee through which these unions are funneling millions of dollars–the ‘neighborhood safety coalition’–is as devious and dark as these organizations’ underlying motives: Police unions fear accountability and reform, and the prison guards union has a financial interest in more people being sent to prison.
Jackie Lacey and her law enforcement union financiers are going to once again turn to the same playbook they used in the primary, and the same tactics that define Donald Trump’s campaign. They will turn to lies and a campaign of fear because the facts are simply not on their side. The public and the media alike should not allow them to hide behind a false veil of safety when the truth is damning: Violent crime went up 30 percent during Jackie Lacey’s two terms in office while it went down during my two terms, and I achieved those superior results while sending people to state prison at 1/4 the per capita rate.”
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George Gascón is the Democratic Party’s nominee. He is endorsed by the LA Times and the LA Daily News, Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris, U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Governor Gavin Newsom, Black Lives Matter cofounder Patrisse Cullors, labor leader and civil rights icon Dolores Huerta, and former Chief of the LAPD Charlie Beck. Click here for a full list of his supporters.
Mr. 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.