Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva blasted leftist Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, snapping, “He brought down his 10 Commandments, the tablets from the mountain, his special directives, and expects the entire world to go with it, somehow it’s going to work. Well, it’s not working.” He added that he had only spoken to Gascón once since Gascón was sworn in as DA last December, adding, “We want him to be successful, but it can’t come at the expense of public safety and at the expense of victims of crime. That’s where I have to draw that firm line in the sand.”
Fox 11’s Bill Melugin, speaking of possible imminent rioting after the verdict is delivered in the case of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd, asked Villanueva, “What are your marching orders going to be to your deputies out there on the street? You indicated on Monday that you’re concerned about how our new District Attorney might or might not prosecute looting, vandalism, that sort of a thing. What are you telling your street deputies, if they do make an arrest, are you worried there might not be a prosecutorial fist behind it?”
“That is definitely a legitimate concern because if there’s a lack of a prosecutorial fist, that might actually embolden some of our Antifa, anarchist crowd, the radical elements, to try to hijack peaceful protest for their own personal gain or their own agendas,” Villanueva answered. “And if they feel like they’re not going to face any serious consequence, that is a big problem, and that is something the district attorney himself is going to have to answer to.”
Fox 11’s Elex Michaelson asked, “What is the nature of your relationship right now with the (Los Angeles County) District Attorney, George Gascón? Are you even on speaking terms?”
“I’ve had one phone call with him since he’s taken office,” Villanueva replied. “It was a practical issue; we had to coordinate some effort on a case, and that has been it. Everything else has been he issues a — he brought down his 10 Commandments, the tablets from the mountain, his special directives, and expects the entire world to go with it, somehow it’s going to work. Well, it’s not working. It has dire consequences for victims of crime. For example, we presented 12 cases of solicitation for prostitution; he dismissed them all, refused to file them; he’s basically legalized prostitution in Los Angeles County by not following through on his job as the District Attorney. So there are so many consequences of the decisions he’s making; they are very far-reaching, and I don’t think — the public is just now starting to understand there is consequence when you eliminate consequences for the criminal community.”
Asked how the two offices could work together since there was such a great political divide between them, Villanueva answered, “When he took office I made it very clear I want him to succeed as District Attorney. And there’s ways that we can reform the criminal justice system, the places that needed to be fixed. Yes, by all means we can do that but there’s a way to do it properly where you incorporate all the stakeholders, the state legislature, it involves, obviously, the enforcement of the regulatory scheme we have with the penal code. And he found, head-on, when he tried to change or nullify this three-strikes law, he was sued and he lost in court.
“So we want him to be successful, but it can’t come at the expense of public safety and at the expense of victims of crime,” Villanueva concluded. “That’s where I have to draw that firm line in the sand.”
Gascón, sworn in as Los Angeles County district attorney in December 2020 after serving as the DA of San Francisco from 2011 to 2019, is facing an imminent recall campaign. When he was sworn in, LA Magazine reported, “ He also wants to reevaluate sentences in cases where the inmate has served more than 20 years in state prison, demonstrated signs of rehabilitation, or was sentenced to adult prisons as a child. He will also instruct prosecutors in his office to cease requesting cash bail for any misdemeanor, and non-serious or non-violent felony offense. On January 1, he will eliminate requests for money bail entirely.”
The Los Angeles Police Protective League fired off a statement reading, “As homicides, shooting victims and shots fired into occupied homes soar in Los Angeles, it’s disturbing that Gascon’s first act in office is to explore every avenue possible to release from jail those responsible for this bloodshed. These victims and law-abiding residents lost a voice today while criminals and gang members gained an ally in the prosecutor’s office.”