LA DA Lacey attacks opponents, defends record in first campaign debate

Addressing a raucous and progressively hostile crowd during her first appearance at a district attorney candidate debate Wednesday night, Los Angeles DA Jackie Lacey said challenger Rachel Rossi, a former public defender, was “not qualified to run the largest office in the nation” and asked protesters why they weren’t “talking to your San Francisco counterparts about the issues they had with George Gascon’s administration.”

The incumbent DA spent the night vehemently responding to criticisms from Rossi and former San Francisco DA Gascon, who outlined their stances on the death penalty, homelessness, changes in the cash bail laws, racial disparities within the criminal justice system, diversion programs and the prosecution of police officers.

“This is not a spokesperson job. This is a job for a real lawyer who understands in their heart and soul what a prosecutor is about,” Lacey said of Rossi. “This is not an entry level job, and Ms. Rossi is trying to get payback for what has been happening to her clients.”

Wednesday’s debate was a far cry from a previous debate co-hosted by the ACLU in December, when Rossi, Gascon, and audience members repeatedly criticized Lacey’s tenure as DA in her absence. Lacey did not attend the December debate, citing a scheduling conflict.

Tensions were also high during Wednesday’s debate, during which protesters, who were strategically dispersed throughout the Aratani Theatre in downtown LA, repeatedly interrupted Lacey with chants of “Jackie Lacey must go.” A half hour into the debate, a man strode up to the stage shouting at Lacey before security escorted him outside, and a row of LAPD officers filed into the room. At another point, a woman fell down when a security guard tried to carry out a man standing next to her. Her son, the woman shouted at Lacey, was beaten to death by members of the 3,000 Boys, an alleged gang of LA County sheriff’s deputies.

Lacey spent much of the debate clarifying what she said were misconceptions about her policies while Gascon cited his record as San Francisco’s top prosecutor. Rossi outlined plans for data-driven policies and independent audits.

“One of the things that I would do as district attorney is start, from day one, by exploring the use of independent prosecutors whenever law enforcement use of force results in death,” Rossi said. “What we have is a conflict of interest because law enforcement works closely with the district attorney, and the district attorney is then called on to prosecute someone that they depend on for their cases. That conflict of interest has to be done away with.”

“With regard to Ms. Rossi’s argument of an independent prosecutor,” Lacey responded, “I would say that the LA County district attorney’s office is independent. We have filed on more than 200 officers for violating the law, so we are not afraid to take on cases that involve officers.”

In a discussion about SB 10, Lacey cited her support for the suspended bill that eliminates bail, adding, “Mr. Gascon has said he’s in favor of bail reform. However, notice the new district attorney of San Francisco implementing bail reform.”

“Ms. Lacey has fought every single reform initiative that has come through her desk aggressively,” Gascon replied. “In 2012, before there was any other DA talking about the need to get rid of cash bail, I was an outspoken DA talking about the need to get rid of cash bail. And we began to work with the Arnold Foundation to develop tools — they’re not perfect — but actually lowered not only the number of people that were being held pre-trial, but more importantly starting to take away the use of bail.”

Asked by one of the debate hosts why he would not charge gang enhancements in LA even though he charged them in San Francisco, Gascon said, “Around 2014, I began getting very uncomfortable with the use of enhancements, and we worked with Stanford to ... do an analysis of the impact of enhancements in our work. One of the things that became very obvious to me was that incarceration levels were driven by status enhancements, including gang enhancements. And I came to the conclusion to stop using them.”

He noted a recent scandal about LAPD officers falsifying records to wrongly portray individuals as gang members or associates.

“With gang enhancements, they should be carefully used, and in the past, it has been abused in the sense that affiliates and folks who knew gang members were falsely identified,” Lacey said. “Obviously the FI card scandal for LAPD that involved the officers ... we are reviewing that, so we are not able to talk about that publicly.”

She added, “We do file gang enhancements on cases where we believe we have strong evidence. ... In LA County, we have an issue with gang violence: 53% of the homicides committed in LA involved gangs.”

Rossi said, “I have to say, when I saw this report come out about the FI scandal, I actually wasn’t surprised because I saw it every day as a public defender. I saw it with the majority of my cases.”

“The way that you get labeled a gang member,” she said, “is an officer takes out a card, sees you in the street and says ‘Oh, you’re wearing baggy clothes, I see a red hat, you’re friends with such and such, I think he might be a gang member, I’m calling you a gang member today.’ Puts that in a file, and then we label people. The average age of a ‘gang member’ in LA County is 15 years old.”

Rossi added, “Well, if someone commits a murder, you can still charge them with murder.”

Early voting for the March primary election begins Feb. 3.