Families of crime victims in Los Angeles County have spoken out against Liberal District Attorney George Gascón, who has a reminder attempt similar to the one for which Gavin Newsom, governor of California.
The families said in an interview broadcast on Fox & Friends on Tuesday that they should expel the newly elected district attorney, and told Lawrence Jones, ‘host’ of Fox News Primetime, that they believe the criminal reforms of Gascón criminals prioritize above their victims.
Jones traveled to Los Angeles to speak with district attorneys in the state and the families affected by Gascón’s policies.
One of those families, that of murdered Los Angeles County Sgt. Steven Owen, demanded that his killer be sentenced to death, but Gascón forbade it.
FILE – This August 19, 2014 file photo released by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department shows Sgt. Steven Owen. Owen was shot dead by a landlord on October 5, 2016 while responding to a burglary report in Lancaster, California.
((Sheriff at Los Angeles County via AP, file)
“I have always believed in the legal system, but with my husband not only murdered … executed, this new district attorney completely overthrew this working legal system,” said Owen’s wife, Tania, who served with her husband. , said Jones.
“It just takes you back to the scene,” said Millie Owen, sergeant. Owen’s mother, said. “We were robbed, robbed of her husband, robbed of a father, robbed of my son and then for this lawyer to do that, it’s just like robbery again.”
A gunman first shot and wounded Owen before, according to him, in 2016, he fired four bullets into his body.
The 53-year-old was shot while responding to a report of a burglary at an apartment in Lancaster.
Tania Owen shared her message to other families of crime victims in Los Angeles County.
“I would tell them to be strong, it’s not over yet,” she told Jones. “We have another voice, we can do something about it. Remember this man. ‘
LA DA GASCON DEADLY PERSONAL PENALTY PERSONAL PUNISHMENT
Memorial organizers held a “vigilance for victims” weekend to collect the 20 signatures needed by LA County residents to formally launch the recall process.
Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon is speaking after being sworn in during a mostly virtual ceremony in downtown Los Angeles on December 7, 2020.
(Bryan Chan / County of Los Angeles via AP)
The effort should get just under 600,000 signatures from registered Los Angeles voters, or 10 percent of the voter list, to force Gascón to run again.
On the day he took office in December, Gascón announced a series of sweeping changes, including stopping the use of sentencing improvements, which are restricted when prosecutors can keep defendants without bail, ending the use of the death penalty in LA County and using of the trial of juveniles as a ban on the adults.
A mother in LA County said she felt “sick” after learning that special charges against three of the men accused of killing her 20-year-old son and throwing her off a cliff in 2018 were dropped in December Gascón’s comprehensive reforms have been dismissed.
Desiree Andrade told Fox 11 in Los Angeles that the death of her son, Julian Andrade, crushed her. An emotional Andrade spoke to Jones and said, ‘I never thought I would ever have to lose a child or greet a child. ‘
“The day I found out what he was doing, I felt it was a slap in the face,” she added.
Investigators said Julian Andrade was repeatedly beaten and stabbed until he lost consciousness. The suspects, who believe he is dead, drove him to the mountains in Azusa to dispose of the body. The suspects allegedly realized he was still alive, bumped on his head.
According to investigators, they threw his body off a cliff, but still heard him struggling. Allegedly, one suspect climbed down to attack the 20-year-old again.
The three suspects are charged with special circumstances of fatal weapon, kidnapping and robbery – charges that would give them life without parole if they were found guilty. Since the charges were dismissed in court in December, they could be eligible for parole within 20 to 30 years.
Julian Andrade was the father of a 9-month-old child and, according to KTLA-TV, had a second on the road when he was killed.
While Andrade held back the tears, she told Jones that she would “love” Gascón to tell her “rationale about it all”.
“I wake up every day, one child less, every day,” she said. “And every day I have to look into my grandchildren’s eyes, it hurts.”
Jones also spoke to other California district attorneys and even one of Gascón’s deputies in his own office who is against his policies.
LA County Deputy Attorney Jon Hatami told Jones that criminals ‘actually like the DA’
Jones asked Hatami, “Is it typical for a deputy DA to take on his DA?”
“No, that’s not typical,” he replied.
Jones further asks, “Can you look into the eyes of the victims in LA County and tell them they are safe?”
“I can not now,” he replied.
“Within minutes of being sworn in, he adopted a number of … policies that are the biggest failure of crime victims’ rights,” Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert told Jones. “You can no longer demand the death penalty, you can no longer seek life without the possibility of parole.”
“These directions are dangerous, not only for LA, but also for this state and this country,” said Tul Ward, district attorney in Tulare.
In a conversation about ‘Fox & Friends’ on Tuesday, Jones noted that ‘people across LA’ were affected by Gascón’s policies.
“We can not allow it to go down this way because it is becoming a model for the country,” the Fox Nation host said. ‘If we do not stand up for the people in LA, it could come to a city near you. In some cases, it has. ‘
Gascón turned down Fox News’ request for an interview. He said in a statement to Fox News on Tuesday that the “pain and trauma of losing a loved one is immeasurable.”
“While a minority of victims want the maximum punishment in their case, research shows that these views are not shared by a majority of survivors of violent crime, as most survivors do not seek healing by another person in a cage. to post, “he continued. .
“In addition, studies have shown that excessive sentencing has exacerbated its recurrence leading to more victims of crime.”
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Gascón further writes: “Our system of justice cannot continue to rely on policies that create more victims tomorrow simply because a minority of victims want the maximum punishment that should be imposed in their case today.”
Fox News’s Morgan Phillips. Stephen Sorace and The Associated Press contributed to this report.