She was hailed as a reformer, a veteran insider who could fix the problems of the largest judicial county agency in the country and bring equity and social justice into the 21st century. Members of the Black community rejoiced. Finally one of their own was at the pinnacle of the legal profession: A “home-girl” from the Crenshaw District who knew what distrust of authority and racism felt like. At the same time, the threat of burglary and violent crime were an ever present specter of her childhood.
A few years later, after a fair amount of accolades and earnest efforts at bringing humanity to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, Jackie Lacey has morphed into a linchpin for the law and order community.
A veteran of over 25 years as a deputy district attorney before being elected into the top spot in 2012, she is under fire for failing to prosecute law enforcement personnel in spite of hundreds of deaths in officer involved shootings during her tenure. She has also been criticized for not pursuing criminal charges involving celebrity and high profile individuals, particularly wealthy political fundraiser Ed Buck, after a series of drug-related deaths of young Black men in Buck’s apartment.
The County jail system, the repository where most of her defendants end up, is the biggest jail system in the world, and remains overwhelmingly Black and Hispanic. Bucking the trend towards abolishing capital punishment, 22 people have been convicted and placed on Death Row during her watch. None of them are Caucasian.
Lacey maintains she is merely following the law. As such, she walks a tightrope, attempting to stem recidivism among those who enter her courtrooms while maintaining the precepts she is sworn to uphold.
In short order, she implemented diversion programs to steer the mentally ill and narcotics abusers away from jail, and expunged the convictions of 66,000 marijuana offenders. Under her watch, a Conviction Review Unit was set up to investigate questionable prosecutions. Lacey has also moved to unburden low-income people from the financial handicaps of misdemeanors and old warrants that clog the judicial system.
Lacey did not respond to Our Weekly’s requests for an interview, but her opponent, George Gascón agreed to an exchange via email. Noting the root causes for grassroots abandonment of the figure they once championed, he spoke of her “… failure to hold police accountable.”
“… 600 people have been killed by police during her tenure,” he recalled.
Gascón has an extensive background in law enforcement. After 27 years on the Los Angeles Police Department, then tenure as Chief of the Mesa, AZ. and San Francisco Police Departments, he was elected district attorney of San Francisco before moving south to vie for the same position here. He stresses his ongoing career as a learning experience, informing his future intention to “… enhance safety while reducing incarceration.“
“As a young police officer I believed that tough-on-crime was the most effective approach, but over my decades in law enforcement I have learned that we largely lost our ability to distinguish the dangerous from the nuisance.”
Curiously, Black Lives Matter is endorsing Gascón, a White, Cuban immigrant, over African-American Lacey.
“…police unions are spending millions of dollars to support her reelection,” Gascón said, picking up on a Black Lives Matter concern regarding Lacey’s conflict of interest.
The saga of each candidate’s support group is a story in and of itself. All told, upwards of $12 million has been funneled into the campaign. Lacey, a perennial police favorite, has received about $5 million from law enforcement unions.
Gascón received about $6 million in donations from Bay Area philanthropists, including left-leaning George Soros, who’s poured some $1.5 million to Gascón’s campaign.
Lacey’s disconnect with Black Lives Matter came to a head when they staged a protest in front of her Granada Hills home on March 2. Her husband confronted the demonstrators with a handgun when they stepped on his porch and was summarily charged with assault.
David Lacey plead not guilty in a Oct. 2 court appearance, and his case is pending.
To be fair, Gascón is not without his share of controversy. Under his watch as San Francisco’s District Attorney (2011-19), the incident that arguably initiated the current outcry about police abuse occurred. On Dec. 2, 2015, police responded to a stabbing and confronted 26-year-old Mario Woods brandishing a 4.5 inch kitchen knife in the Bayview section of the city.
After non-lethal force failed to subdue him, officers fired as many as 26 rounds at Woods, hitting him 11 times. Marijuana and methamphetamine were discovered in Wood’s system during an autopsy. Gascón declined to prosecute the involved officers, even though Woods did not appear to be threatening them or bystanders in confiscated videos.
Then—San Francisco 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick has said this incident motivated him to begin protesting racial injustice, by kneeling during the National Anthem prior to NFL games.
