LOS ANGELES — Today, George Gascón’s campaign for Los Angeles District Attorney released the following statement in response to statements made by DA Jackie Lacey on Fox 11’s, “The Issue Is,” with Elex Michaelson.
“District Attorney Jackie Lacey took an oath to seek out the truth, but on Tuesday night she went on television and showered Los Angeles with lies,” said campaign spokesperson Max Szabo. “The fact that she chose to accuse a veteran and career law enforcement official of being uninterested in safety shows she is running scared. She has lied under oath before, so lying to the voters is a walk in the park for Jackie Lacey. Lacey also doubled down and confirmed that she remains unapalogetic for failing to charge one of her donors, Ed Buck. And with such an attrocious record it’s unsurprising that her ‘proudest accomplishment’ is waiting seven years to release an innocent man from state prison. She should not be applauded for doing her job. She should be shunned for waiting so long to take action after receiving notice from homicide detectives.”
Some of the highlights of DA Lacey‘s on-air performance include:
- DA Lacey kicked off the segment with the laughable claim, “I am a progressive.” This is despite the fact that Lacey has opposed every major criminal justice reform initiative since 2011, including realignment, Propositions 47, 57, 64, and SB 10 (which eliminated money bail). Additionally, and in spite of the moratorium, Laceyhas continued to seek the death penalty. For these reasons and more the Los Angeles Democratic party voted to endorse Gascón with nearly 80 percent of thevote, to Lacey‘s less than 1 percent.
- DA Lacey then went on to make the jaw dropping statement, “[George Gascón] doesn’t seem to care about your safety, he certainly didn’t care about the safety of the residents of San Francisco.” Mr. Michaelson rightly pointed out the mental gymnastics required to come to the conclusion that a longtime police officer and decorated veteran doesn’t care about community safety. Beyond the oddity of thestatement, data published in today’s Chronicle shows homicides in San Francisco are at a 56-year low, including “declines in every major category of violence, including assaults, rapes and robberies.” Interestingly, despite DA Lacey‘s having sent people to state prison at four times the rate of San Francisco, violent crime has fallen in San Francisco faster than it has in LA, suggesting Lacey has misused government’s most expensive intervention, incarceration.
- When asked if she regrets that Buck wasn’t arrested sooner Lacey said, “No. Because, um… with a prosecutor you’re the one that has to be the one who says no.” This is in spite of experts who have said, “the district attorney’s office probably could have charged Buck with a drug offense much sooner than it did,” and, “at least eight other men [had] alleged to authorities that Buck provided them with drugs in exchange for participating in his drug-fueled sexual fetishes.” Buck joins a long list of wealthy and well-connected men who Lacey has declined to prosecute, including Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby and Bikram Choudhury. All of which further fuels the hypocrisy of her claim that, “[George Gascón] doesn’t seem to care about your safety.”
- Finally, Lacey also indicated that freeing an innocent man, Ruben Martinez Jr., was her ‘proudest accomplishment.’ She exclaimed, “I can’t tell you how emotional it was, and how right it felt.” This statement is as fascinating as fascinating as it is troubling and shows how low the bar has sunk under the sitting DA‘s watch, as Lacey received personal notice from homicide detectives as early as 2012 that there was an innocent man in prison. Despite this she left Mr. Martinez in prison until roughly the same time that she became a self-proclaimed progressive: The days following George Gascón’s entrance into the race for Los Angeles District Attorney.
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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 therank 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 outoing 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.