Radical DA Gascon “Has Turned the Streets of LA Into a Living Nightmare”

Last week, a political campaign in California celebrated an impactful milestone, as the “Recall DA George Gascón” group announced it had collected over 400,000 signatures as of May 1, raising more than $6 million.

In order to get the recall question on the ballot, the campaign must collect 566,857 signatures from registered voters in Los Angeles County. This amounts to approximately 10% of registered voters, as county officials logged 5,690,406 total registrations for September’s gubernatorial recall election.

“Perhaps worse than any one specific policy, Gascón has sent a loud and clear message to criminals that he will always have their backs, whether that means lowering sentences or declining to prosecute certain crimes altogether,” a spokesperson with the Recall DA George Gascón campaign told The Daily Wire.

“That mentality has turned the streets of Los Angeles into a living nightmare — criminals feel emboldened, residents feel unsafe, and victims feel completely betrayed. That is why you see convicted killers saying they are going to tattoo Gascón name on their forehead or toasting Gascón with homemade alcohol from inside a prison cell.”

In an earlier press release, the campaign said that it was “starting to see light at the end of the tunnel,” and that “there is a legitimate pathway to qualifying the recall by the July 6th deadline if we do not let up.”

“In addition to paid and volunteer signature gathering, the recall is preparing to mail out petitions with pre-paid return envelopes to targeted Los Angeles County voters,” the campaign added. “This is the make-or-break phase of the recall, and if we can pull off this monumental task, Gascón will be voted out in a landslide.”

According to Los Angeles Magazine, the effort to recall the controversial District Attorney is surprisingly bipartisan, with “help from some deep-pocketed Democratic donors and Hollywood grandees,” with some “big-name Democrats” entering “the fray in the early days of 2022.” The outlet described numerous early contributors to the campaign, including notable Democrats with links to the Clinton and Biden administrations.

Calls to recall Gascón follow a concerning rise in lawlessness in Los Angeles, with dozens of cities in America’s most populous county issuing votes of “no confidence” in the District Attorney. These include San Gabriel, Santa Clarita, Beverly Hills, Pico Rivera, Whitter, La Mirada, Covina, Rosemead, Azusa, Santa Fe Springs, Diamond Bar, Redondo Beach, Arcadia, Manhattan Beach, Temple City, Palos Verdes Estates and Lancaster.

The Association of Deputy District Attorneys (ADDA), the “collective bargaining group for more than 800 deputy district attorneys in the county,” voted in support of the recall effort, with 98% of Gascón’s own line prosecutors voting in favor. Approximately 83% of association members took part in the vote.

“This vote is by those who are intimately familiar with how Mr. Gascón’s policies actually play out on a day-to-day basis,” ADDA President Michele Hanisee said in a statement announcing the vote. “We believe the vote of our members will resonate with the voters of Los Angeles as they decide whether to recall Gascón from office and restore public safety as the priority of the District Attorney’s Office.”

On the campaign’s website, a summary of George Gascón’s directives include the elimination of cash bail, the redefinition of 13 crimes as misdemeanors (such as trespassing, driving without a license and resisting arrest), and treating repeat violent offenders as first-time offenders.

Ian Haworth is a writer for The Daily Wire and contributor to Morning Wire. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.