A Los Angeles shooting victim’s grieving mother confronted progressive District Attorney George Gascón with tough questions last week, slamming his allegedly soft-on-crime policies to his face.
“My child was killed by a gang member, and you had more sympathy for that gang member than my child who was killed in front of my home,” Emma Rivas said during a district attorney debate over policies on gang-related crime enhancements last Thursday.
“Can you explain to me? Because I’ve been looking for you for four years.”
GASCON PRESSED AT LOS ANGELES COUNTY DA DEBATE OVER LAX POLICIES ON GANG-RELATED CRIME ENHANCEMENTS
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon attends a news conference Monday to address the allegation that hotels are using staffing agencies to hire homeless migrants as replacement workers for strikers at Le Meridien Defina hotel in Santa Monica on October 23, 2023. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Gascón responded, “I am broken-hearted for your loss,” before defending his stance on criminal justice reform, adding, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. We as a country have been doing the same thing for generations.”
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Rivas, whose son was murdered in Los Angeles in 2016, joined “Fox & Friends Weekend” on Sunday to follow up on the tense exchange she had with the embattled DA.
“We cannot have that kind of progressive DA in office,” she said. “This is the first time in history, 180 years, that we’ve ever had a DA that has a heart for criminals and not a heart for the victims. There are parents that lost their children to murder that are 16, 17 years old and getting five years in jail. Where’s the justice in this?
Emma Rivas, whose son was shot and killed by a gang member in 2016, confronted DA George Gascon for his alleged soft-on-crime policies last Thursday. (Fox & Friends Weekend/Screenngrab & KTTV)
“And he sits there smiling and laughing, and he just doesn’t care. He’s not fit to be a DA, and his assistant is a defense attorney. How did we get to this? And why aren’t people realizing this man is no good for LA? He already ruined San Francisco, and now he’s doing the same thing in Los Angeles County.”
Gascón barred prosecutors from pursuing advanced punishments for gang members after taking over as district attorney, according to FOX 11 in LA.
Multiple deputy district attorneys running against him voiced their disagreement with the policy last Thursday.
Rivas, meanwhile, slammed the policies’ impact on sentencing for her son’s killer.
Gascón has previously defended his crime policies, telling KTLA-TV in June 2022 that he knows “how to keep communities safe,” blaming rising violence in the county on the COVID-19 pandemic.
He also garnered the endorsement of The Los Angeles Times’ editorial board for his re-election bid as its members insisted “voters would be wise to reject the nonsense and keep Gascón on the job and criminal justice reform in place.”
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Fox News’ Landon Mion contributed to this report.