What's Next, Los Angeles? with Mike Bonin
Los Angeles is at a turning point. We are living in a defining moment. What happens next is up to us. Over the past few years, problems and challenges have shaken this city -- and tremendous opportunities for change have presented themselves. How do we rise to this moment and emerge a better place to live? What will it take to create a more just and a more equitable community? Working together, how are we going to create a stronger, forward-thinking Los Angeles? Mike Bonin, writer, teacher, progressive activist and former City Councilmember, looks at the issues and problems facing Los Angeles, examines ideas, and talks with the people who will lead us to a brighter future.
Produced in partnership with LA Forward.
What's Next, Los Angeles? with Mike Bonin
George Gascon: On the Side of Justice:
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District Attorney George Gascon is one of the most controversial candidates on your ballot. I talk with him about his record, his thoughts on crime and punishment, what it means to be a progressive prosecutor, and about the Menendez Brothers case, on this episode of What's Next, Los Angeles.
Netflix episodes about Franky Carrillo: https://www.netflix.com/title/80214563 (episodes 4 and 5)
LA FORWARD PROGRESSIVE VOTER GUIDE
LA PODCAST
What's Next, Los Angeles? is produced and hosted by Mike Bonin, in partnership with LA Forward.
District Attorney George Gascone is one of the most controversial candidates on your ballot. I talk with him about his record, his thoughts on crime and punishment, what it means to be a progressive prosecutor, and about the Menendez brothers on this episode of What's Next, Los Angeles. Hi everybody and welcome. It's Mike Bonn and thank you so much for joining me. One of the most important races on your local ballot is the contest for Los Angeles County District Attorney. The race between incumbent George Gascone and challenger Nathan Hawkman has gotten tons of coverage. Lots of people are talking about it. But it's being talked about wrong. It is being relentlessly framed by the media and by conservatives as crime is skyrocketing. Will voters throw Gascone out of office because of it? Well, that's whacked. First of all, crime is not skyrocketing. In most categories it's going down, and it is lower in areas with progressive prosecutors like George Gascone than it is in areas with lock 'em up and throw away the key, mass incarceration advocates like Hawkman. The question we should be talking about should be what is the best way to create safe communities? What are the best strategies to achieve that?
unknownUh-huh.
SPEAKER_00And who has those ideas? Those are very different questions. That's a very different conversation. And that's the conversation I set out to have with George Gascone when we got together last Friday night, eleven days before the election. Now it should be no surprise to folks that I am a longtime Gascone supporter. I was one of his first endorsers four years ago, and I'm a strong advocate for him now. It was a great pleasure to get together with him and to bring you that conversation right here. I'm I am doing great. It's it's great to to be with you. Uh we're gonna have to do a little bit of a pivot. You and my husband were just talking about crock pots and cooking, so we're gonna get a little more serious. We'll get into the food part. Exactly. Uh I I I want in the in the time we have together, I've watched so many interviews with you, and so much of the campaign coverage has really been about you having to respond to somebody else's frame. Hawkman said this, or the the Sheriff Union says this, or whatever. So I want to spend some time today giving you an opportunity to sort of frame things and sort of put out a proactive message. And I'll I'll start with what's been in the news this week. And we're recording on uh Friday, this will probably air on Monday or Tuesday. Uh just yesterday, uh you made the announcement about seeking resentencing for the Menendez brothers. There's been a lot of coverage of that. For so many voters who are not engaged on a daily basis, this is really your closing argument to them in many ways. Probably wasn't your intention, but that this is the big info dump they're getting about. I'm curious about what this decision to seek the resentencing says about the way you approach criminal justice reform.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Yeah. Well, so you know, first of all, we've resentenced over 300 people. Less than 1% has recidivated. So it's this is a really successful approach to the work. Uh 20 of them have been for murder. And and quite frankly, none of them has been famous. You know, they've all been poor kids, you know, black and brown. And one of the things that we know is that if we want public safety to work for everybody, we have to give people an opportunity to rehabilitate. We have to have an opportunity for redemption. And one of the the components of evaluating the Melinda's case was you know, Holland have been in prison, they were there 35 years. Uh they they were very young, 19 and 21, when they committed the horrible uh murders. And then is have have they rehabilitated? Are they can they be reintegrated into our community and be an asset to our society? And and and I believe the answer to that is yes. Also, I think it's important that you know we validate the voices of victims of sexual assault, right? And not only women, but men and boys too, right? Uh I think that there is sometimes they believe, and we saw that on the first trial, of a prosecutor saying, Well, men can't be raped. Yep. Well, men get raped many times, right? We see it in prisons, we see it in schools and churches. So I think that, you know, having an honest conversation about sexual assaults and about sexual abuse, uh, and humanizing it and saying, you know, it can happen to either a boy or a man or a girl or women or trans women, you know, yeah, I I think it's an important conversation to have. So in many ways, they represent multiple things for me and I hopefully for our community, right? They they represent the face of redemption and rehabilitation, the the humanity in all of us. That people can do horrible things in a in a bad moment, and yet they're not necessarily throwaway human beings. At some point, they pay their dues and they can come back. Then it also talks about sexual assaults, yeah, right? And the fact that we want victims to feel comfortable coming forward to talking about it. I think that, you know, obviously, arguably, some people in my office say, well, they were never assaulted, they made that up. I don't believe that. But you know, they certainly were not immediately coming through and saying this is what occurred, right? Certainly one of them had been molested by his father for years before all this happened, right? And we want people in our community to look and say, hey, uh, if I know someone or if I am the victim of a sexual um, you know, misconduct, whether it's rape or otherwise, you can come forward. There are people here for you. You don't have to feel shame. And it doesn't matter whether you're men, women, gay, straight, it really doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the world has really changed since those those trials. I remember watching them, and I was thinking today that the the the first trial was shortly after the sexual assault trial of William Kennedy Smith, where there was some some victim shaming in in in that case. And we've come so far now in our understanding, even of sensitivity about sexual assault for women and certainly much further uh for men. And and the brothers, as I understand it, have done a lot of the the kind of stuff in prison that we want prisoners to be doing to rehabilitate.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I tell you that they have been exceptional. And by the way, you know, we've reviewed their prison files for the entire time they've been in prison. And they have not only uh, you know, work on self-improvement, including education, you know, both formal college and otherwise, but they have also done something that is quite uh remarkable in my book. They have gone out of their way to become leaders and within the prison community and help others, you know, whether people with handicaps, like one on learning sign language to be able to help um, you know, other inmates that that have hearing problems, uh working with other people that were going to be placing uh a separate ward because or or building because they had mental health problems, and the other prisoners did not want to be in the same place with this because you know they they're you know they they have mental health issues and how they they broker a deal with the the prison officials and the other inmates to integrate into the regular uh you know uh housing facilities, uh those people that have mental health problems because they recognize that they would be doing better, assuming they're taking the medication and everything else, actually being with the general population and becoming part of the community. Um they worked on uh in Donovan, which is the last prison they have been. And for anybody familiar with prisons, but Donovan is like a desert near the Mexican border, you know, very arid, very ugly terrain. And they actually work on beautifying, creating gardens and painting murals and the walls, and actually having prisoners do the work. Um uh one on you know, Lyle, the older one, uh he's uh engaging almost like a like a peer leader in negotiating living conditions between the prisoners and the officials. Uh you know, there's just so much there to unpack. And you know, they did so much of this when they had no hopes of getting out. Right. The life without the possibility, bro. You're never coming out. Uh you're coming out on a pine box, basically, right? And so you can't, you know, even though we want people that are coming out to be motivated to fix themselves, so when they come out, they're better. But this is the people that did it and basically say, you know, I'm never coming out. I thought all that spoke very uh, you know, very loudly about who they are today, as opposed to who they were when they murdered their parents. And I think it also this gives hope to other prisoners, which by the way, if you talk to prison officials, they tell you that the the worst inmates that we can have is the one that has no hope.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01People that have hope, they can overcome so much, right? I mean, that's true for us, all of us here on the street, but certainly the case in prisons, you know, the worst thing you can take away from a human being is hope. Yeah, right. So I think this speaks in many levels, and then I tell you one audit plus about this case, which I never thought about it until today, during one of my interviews. And that is, you know, we have resentenced over 300 young people. Well, actually not all young, people that went into prison at very early ages. And I believe almost all of them are black and brown, poor. They all went to prison for decades. You know, they have been in prison for decades before they got resentenced, but nobody, they're like invisible to most to the community, right? The media, they nobody really cares. This is a poor black kid, poor uh brown kid, now an adult has been in prison for 20, 30 years, whatever, they did something horrible, they're getting out. I think the Menendez have given us a platform to to humanize people that are in prison that could come out and do well uh in ways that I think the other 300 plus people that we release didn't do. We're all here for a purpose, right? I do believe in destiny. I believe that we're we're just not a clump of meat and bones, you know. There is a bigger thing going on, uh, whether you believe it religiously or spiritually or whatever you you you you you believe in. And I believe that this this man had been placed in this moment, and I was placed in this moment for a reason. And so, you know, I've decided that, you know, I'm gonna use it. You know, I'm gonna use it to highlight the story of so many other invisible men and women that could get out of prison, could be back with their families, could be uh productive members of our society, but they're still locked up just simply because the system can, because it has to.
SPEAKER_00That's uh thank you for sharing that. That that's an interesting answer that gives me the segue I wanted. You you you talk about how that case told a different story. Um campaigns like the one you're engaged in now, a very heated campaign, are also about stories. And often it's about who's controlling the story, who's controlling the question. And uh the media has has really invested a lot in one narrative that has been very beneficial to your opponent. And so the question they're asking or he's asking is what do we do about uh out-of-control crime? Now, uh we can get into it, but that's uh a false premise, right? Right. What question would you like voters to be asking themselves and answering when they cast their votes?
SPEAKER_01Look, I I think that you know assuming that that people can be on get beyond the the idea that crime is up because that's a questionable promise as you indicated, but I wish if people would ask themselves what kind of society do I want to be in 10 years from now, 20 years from now. If I'm a parent, where do I want my kids' kids to grow up, right? If I'm a grandparent, where do I want my grandkids to grow up? Or you know, and I think that if you start thinking through this whole moment in history, um and you look at what is going on in LA County and there are other communities around the country where you have similar questions that are being asked, and I think if you say, I want a place where people are safe but people are respected, I want a place where people are safe, but people are valued for what they bring to the community, not for their color of their skin, or their how much money they have in the bank account. Uh I want a place where if I have a relative or if I happen to be uh maybe a maybe a member of the LGBTQ community or or or a member of a uh you know religious minority or or you know so many other people that are out there that um I'm gonna be treated with the same level of respect. I want a place where police is respectful of all of us and provides a service that is that is meaningful and thoughtful to the entire community. I want a place where kids are allowed to make mistakes and not be criminalized at very young age. Uh I want a place where we don't have the death penalty. Uh I want a place where um my government curse about the environment and you know people that are you know poisoning my community. Um I think if you start asking those questions, I think I am the answer. Yep. Right? Um because that's what we're doing.
SPEAKER_00So as they ask that question, what have you done in your first term to demonstrate that you are the answer, that you have been doing things that help get us to that kind of future that you just articulated?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean look, we've done a lot of things, first of all, to show that that the simply incarcerating people doesn't necessarily translate into safety. And how have we done that? We've done that by reducing the weight that we um that we use enhancements, for instance, significantly, which are you know increasing you know the time people go to prison for. We've done this by creating more opportunities for diversion for people that have mental health problems, people that commit low-level offenses that are often driven by poverty, um, by eliminating the use of the death penalty, eliminating the you know, the the use of transferring kids into adult courts and prisons, by telling police we're gonna support you and work with you to keep us safe, but if you violate the rights of our community, you're gonna be held accountable. Um by looking at industrial polluters and our most vulnerable communities, and not only prosecuting the corporations, but going after the principles, because these are people that have been paying fines and fees for years, and they look at them as a cost of doing business. In the meantime, they're they're killing our community. By going after people that are not paying their fair wages to their workers, right? By going after big box stores that are uh, you know, that are overcharging people at the at the register, you know, those are the things that we have been doing. At the same time, we've done the traditional work, prosecuting over 100,000 serious and violent crimes, going after organized retail theft. So we've done all of it and more.
SPEAKER_00That that I I'm I'm glad you answered the question that way, because one of the things that has frustrated me so much about this election cycle, not just this campaign, but this one in particular, is that we we have narrowed the discussion of crime to just a very narrow couple categories. And we have left out uh wage theft, we have left out you know white-collar crime, we have left out uh uh environmental crimes, a whole range of things. You know, I I I noted the other day that you know Walmart uh just uh admitted to uh dumping 400 million gallons of hazardous waste. Uh and and they're one of the big backers of Prop 36, right? Uh they're happy to send somebody to jail for a tuba toothpaste, but uh here they are committing a huge crime. And in this race, I haven't heard your opponent talk about crime in that way.
SPEAKER_01No, no, he doesn't. I mean, he's got a very uh very simplistic, but you know, uh very effective way of you know using fear-mongering. Um you know, he I hate to say this, but it's very Trumpish in his approach. You know, it's like even when he says my name, he often purposely mispronounces the name and his gas can, you know, which I think is so immature and funny. I mean, yeah. I think if he thinks he's getting too under my skin, he just doesn't know me well enough. Um, but you know, as a slogan, you know, we're gonna prosecute every crime to the fullest extent. We're gonna make sure that people are in prison and stay there the full term. As if he control the full term of a prison service. And then if you consider what he means, we're gonna prosecute every crime to the full extent of the law, that's code talk for mass incarceration, for the death penalty, for transferring kids into adult court, because that is the maximum extent of the law. And then you look at him and say, eh, you know, he'll say that in one place, and then he'll go into another corner, like he's in the African-American community, and then he starts self-peddling about, well, we'll divert first-time drug offenders, which you know, frankly, is come on, dude. Who do you think these people are were born yesterday? Yeah. So I think that there's just there's just a lot there that unfortunately, you know, people don't seem to be able to get through, as you indicated, this narrative of a couple of crimes, organized retail theft, and a couple of things, and then just sloganism is what I call it.
SPEAKER_00Talk a little bit about the work you have done on uh uh hate crimes, sexual assault, domestic violence, kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, I mean, this is again other areas where we've done a ton of work. So let's begin with hate crimes, right? We actually have uh not only the highest number because you know we're the largest county, so people say, so what, but per capita, and you know, we have the highest level of prosecution hate crimes of anybody in the state. Um, and we not only did the prosecution, but we also started a diversion for for people that committed low-level hate crimes, um, working with the community in that development. We also use our community advisory boards, and we have multiple, to go out into the community. And this started actually with the AAPI advisory board, but then the African American Advisory Board and the LG LGBTQ advisory boards they all co-less together, because obviously those are communities that get most impacted often by hate. And we started doing this information and education campaign throughout the county. Um, so you know that's one component. Uh, and then uh, you know, when you talk about um sex crimes, um especially going after those that are abusing um, you know, they're taking advantage of their position and you know, sexually assaulting women or men. So we went after Weinstein. Uh, you know, we came on the on the the heels of my predecessor not prosecuting at Bucks, and then the feds having to take that case. For those that do not know, this is a man that was uh, you know, he will actually murder some, but he was abusing young gay men, uh primarily African-American young gay men, by drugging them and and and and you know, raping them and you know, sexually assaulting them.
SPEAKER_00Serially, and a couple of them died. Exactly. Yeah. Um thanks to you and the advocacy of folks like Jasmine Cannock, right? He's behind bars now.
SPEAKER_01That's right. That's right. So so we're we've taken a completely different approach. So even like you know, when Weinstein was being prosecuted in New York, and we said, Well, we're gonna do our case here, and people say, Well, is that does that make sense? Why waste our time? They already, he's already and said, well, you know, first of all, we don't know if that prosecution is going to stand, which now we see us in jeopardy. But it's secondly, we have victims here that deserve to have their voices heard. And we've done that with you know a few other people that come from the entertainment industry, uh, powerful people. So holding people accountable that are abusing, uh, sexually abusing others, uh, especially people that are vulnerable or in in relation to, you know, their position of authority. Um, you know, also, you know, take taking a deeper look at how we deal with vulnerable victims in general, right? We one of the things that we did, uh, our first advisory board was a the victims' advisory board. And we selected men and women that did themselves were either the victims of serious and violent crime or they lost a loved one to violence. And very diverse group, African Americans, Latino whites. And one of the things that we said is, you know, based on your experience dealing with this DA's office, because they're all Angelinos, so they their cases were prosecutor or not by the office, where are the things that you would want to see differently? And overwhelmingly, they said, you know, we never felt like our trauma was addressed, was respected. It was almost like the only thing the DA could do for us is prosecute the offender. Right. But, you know, while that gives me some level of comfort, it doesn't address the harm that was caused, right? So, and they said you guys don't provide trauma-informed care. And the person running victim service is a lawyer that doesn't necessarily understand. So, based on their recommendations, one of the things that we did, we did a nationwide search and we recruited a clinician. Interestingly enough, we did a nationwide search and wound up uh selecting a clinician that had been working in the Watts areas for years. I worked for the LA County Department of Public Health. She's been incredible. And we let the advisory board actually sit on the interview panel to make the selection of the finalists. And this person was their selection. It was mine as well, but you know, frankly, they they were, you know. So the way that we have been doing victim services work, we got to get additional budget from the Board of Supervisors. We hired 30 additional victim services representatives. We're not doing work in the community in ways that we were never before. You know, public fairs, uh, you know, just having information tables and different public and community events. And we have up the game of victim services to a place that we're now considered one of the best in the country. Um, so these are all things that also we have been doing, you know, dealing with hate crimes, dealing with sexual predators, dealing with victims, creating a whole different approach to our victims' work. Um, you know, again, you know, just thinking in a very different direction about the work.
SPEAKER_00Things you things that voters have not heard on Fox News or on John and Ken or Talk Radio or anything like that. Uh it's important for people to hear that. You know, as I'm thinking about this race, one of the things that that strikes me as a as a challenge for progressive prosecutors, for for you, for Chasa, for Larry Krasner in in Philadelphia is that not only are you going about the the daily business of of prosecuting crimes, which you are, but you're also trying to get us as an electorate, as a society, to think smarter and to think differently about how we achieve justice. Uh so I want to ask about a couple of of those places where we're where you're trying to help us think differently. One of them is this um is the the concept of uh deterrence. Uh there's a lot of people out there who are saying, oh you know, uh these criminal justice reformers, they're they're they're telling people there's there's no consequences for their crimes and and and and therefore you know crime is is is gonna spike as a result. Um tell me about what types of crimes that you think um we can create a deterrent effect for, and ones where that's just sort of a silly idea.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Yeah, I mean look, beyond the you know, beyond the the warehousing of a human being, obviously you put somebody in prison, if they're gonna commit any crimes is gonna be within the prison population, but 95% of the people we put in prison come back out, right? So if you think about crime very globally, the the type of crimes that generally the concept of being caught and being prosecuted and in prison are going to be sensitive to are usually in the area of white-collar crime. And let me explain why. If you're a lawyer, if you're a doctor, if you're a business person, if you're a police officer, right, you don't get up in the morning anticipating that you will go to prison, number one. Number two, going to prison is not going to be a bash of honor, it's not going to increase your credibility in your community. And thirdly, you're scared. You're very well, you would be very wary, right? So even if if you know in your profession, whatever that line of work is, there's a you know, there's a thought that maybe, hey, I could push the envelope here, maybe benefit financially or otherwise, but breaking the law, you kind of think about it twice, right? Because you don't the consequences for you are too catastrophic. For the kids that are on the street, they would they grew up in in really vulnerable environments where there's a lot of violence and where actually going to jail and prison becomes like a bash one or sort of like building up your street creds, if you will. That does, you know, going getting arrested doesn't mean a whole lot, right? Furthermore, and what people often don't understand, the things that deter people from committing crimes and doing things is certainty and swiftness, right? If you're certain you're gonna get caught, yeah, and if it's gonna be some swift consequences to that, that is gonna slow you down. It's gonna make you think twice. That's why when we're disciplining our kids, you want to make sure they understand you do this, this is what the consequences are. They might not be any TV or no phone or whatever, and it's gonna happen quickly, right? If you wait a week or two weeks, that has no impact anymore.
SPEAKER_00I've learned that the hard way.
SPEAKER_01You yeah, yeah. So, parent, you know that. Okay, our criminal legal system is neither certain nor swift. Okay, and let me explain why. If you commit a property crime, let's say you break into people's homes, you have about an 85% probability that you're never gonna get caught. Okay? Those are pretty good odds, yeah, right? I mean, people gamble on much lower odds all the time, right? So you're not thinking that you're gonna get arrested, you're not thinking that you're gonna end up in prison, right? If you're committing murder in most of our communities, you got about an even chance of getting away with it, right? You know, murder solvability rates are about 50%, and that's probably one of the crimes that we're more likely to resolve, right? So our system is neither certain and it's not swift because if you get caught, it's gonna take a long time anyway for things to occur. So the whole concept that an arrest and a prosecution are gonna deter you from doing bad things is a false premise. And here's how that becomes so evident. You can look nationwide or you can look around California. The communities that have the harshest lock-em-up, law and order prosecutors have higher percentage per capita of violent and crime than we do in communities like ours. When you look around the country, the most violent communities are in the South, where you have this incredibly harsh punishing approach. You're talking about Houston, you're talking about Memphis, and I'm mentioning all the major cities, right? Where you regularly practice the death penalty, all those things. So if these things were to work, these places would be the safest place on earth. But they're not. When you look around our own Southern California area compared to current counties, San Mardino, Riverside, right? Counties that are much less populated than we are, that more open space, and yeah, per capita, they have a worse crime problem that we do. Yeah, no one ever thinks of accusing those prosecutors for causing crime.
SPEAKER_00That's true. That's true. Well, uh a few of us do, but most of them. But most people don't. You know, um and that's fascinating that that deterrence is most effective for for white-collar crime, for the things that so many people don't even think of as crime, right? They they think of the smash and grab, they don't think of the the wage theft, or they don't think of of of of the embezzlement. Um I wanted to ask a bit about mass incarceration, because so much of the the criminal justice conversation gets centered on our most violent and most heinous crimes, which of course makes sense because of how horrendous they are. But that is you know a real minority of of the cases that go through the system. I want to ask you to talk a little bit about your approach to to nonviolent misdemeanors and other lower level crimes, um, you know, particularly how that intersects with mental health and jail overcrowding.
SPEAKER_01Right. And you know, I this is an area where before I give you the answer, I'm gonna also set the stage for the conversation because LA County is actually a laboratory for how misdemeanors are prosecuted. And here's why. We have about 10 million people in the county, about 5 million people live in communities, they have their own city attorney that prosecutes all their misdemeanors. So even though it's only 10 cities out of the 88, because they're the larger cities, is half of the population of the county. So if you live in the city of LA, you live in Long Beach, you live in Pasadena, Santa Monica, Burbank, Torrance, you know, those places have their own misdemeanor prosecutors. And by and large, those misdemeanor prosecutors have continued to do business as they've always have, right? No major reform efforts there. And then you have the parts of the county where my office is doing both felonies and misdemeanors. When you look at the outcome of low-level crimes around our county, interestingly enough, sometimes where most of this the frequency is higher for this stuff happens to be in the places where you have the city attorneys that are doing work as they always have. Right. So understand that first of all. Now, what is my approach? And what do we do? Look, if you are driving under the influence in the misdemeanor world, no injuries, uh you know, no, no aggravating circumstances, if you are trespassing on people's private property, if you're committing an assault, low-level assault, if you're committing domestic violence, low-level, those are all misdemeanors, we prosecute those at the same rate that we always have. Here's what we differ from our peers and what we differ from my predecessor. If you're in possession of a small quantity of drugs for personal use, unless there's some other things to unpack, we're not gonna prosecute you for that. We're gonna try to get you services, or quite frankly, if you're not bothering people otherwise, you know, we're we don't like that you do it, but you know, we need to be thoughtful about the fact that we're not gonna stop you from using certain things because you think you're gonna go to jail for three or four days. And we're tying judicial and system resources and things that we shouldn't. If you are unhouse and you have to relieve yourself, and you maybe go around the back of a building or something like that, we're not gonna prosecute you for indecent exposure. And here's the big ticket item. This is where about 60,000 misdemeanors a year used to happen in my office. If you're driving without a license, we will send you to traffic court, which has the same consequences in terms of your DMB points and insurance, but we're not gonna criminalize you. That's an administrative process. And here's why Who drives without a license or a suspended license? The majority of the people that drive with a suspended license are people that cannot pay fines and fees, often parking tickets. The majority of the people that do not have a driver's license is because they are fearful that if they get a license, they're gonna get reported to immigration. Because even though California offers a license for undocumented residents, that license is like a scarlet license. It's not like your license or mine. Right. Everybody can tell, police officer, everybody can tell this is okay, you must you're undocumented. And people are fearful that that creates that puts their name in a database that may lead at one point to deportation. So the majority of the people that drive without a license are this group. And when they get arrested and they get prosecuted for this, multiple things happen. Usually the car gets impounded. Yep, they lose the car because they're too poor to get the car out of impound. They cannot go to work because they lost their opportunity, you know, the thing that takes them to work. Yep. They can't take the kids to school. Before you know, and they may be in jail for a night or two. Before you know they didn't show up for work, and because they're also the people that are in the most vulnerable uh part of the ladder when it comes to employment, they get fired. Yep. Then they can't pay the rent. Then when they don't pay the rent, they get evicted. Yep. And then they're out there without a home, uh, without a car.
SPEAKER_00So you know it's may get their kids taken away. I mean it's a cascading effect.
SPEAKER_01So you have all this problem. So if you're driving without a license, suspend the license because you have had drunk driving, accidents, and injuries and all that stuff, we'll prosecute you. But that's it's such a small number of people. So the majority of the misdemeanors that we're not prosecuting is actually this driving without a license. Which, by the way, it ties the cords and takes resources away from prosecuting the thief and the people assaulting people and all these other people that need more attention.
SPEAKER_00So the way that often translates out into the streets with residents and and beat cops is um uh we're not even gonna bother taking a report. Gascone won't do anything about it. I used to hear it, you know, oh, we can't do anything, Bonin won't allow us to do it. Uh there's always a blame to someone. Um and that's frustrating when they're not even taking the report and and blaming you because one, it's not true, but it sets back, it creates this climate of panic that sets back efforts to to reform. And it doesn't give your office the opportunity to look at a case and and make that evaluation about what should be prosecuted and what shouldn't.
SPEAKER_01And you know, Mike, it goes even one step further, right? Because you were a city council member in the city of LA, where I don't have misdemeanor prosecution jurisdiction. Exactly. So if they're not arresting a misdemeanor there, and they do tell people it's because of me, it's a complete falsehood because actually, uh well, I mean, I tell you what I told one of my neighbors in Long Beach, hey, the cop said that you won't prosecute this misdemeanor here. I said, you know, they're right. And he said, Well, why wouldn't you? And I said, and I set him up. You know, I had to laugh. I I was a little cruel to him. I said, Yeah, they're right. I won't. And he looks at me, why not? I said, Well, because I don't do uh we don't have jurisdiction for misdemeanors in Long Beach. They have their own city attorney. And he says, You're kidding me, so why would the officer said that? Is that something new? And I said, No, Lumbeach has had a their own city attorney for decades, just like LA. So it's just actually so disingenious.
SPEAKER_00As a as a as a former cop, as a guy who went through the academy, who who who walked the beat, who served in LAPD for decades, that's gotta be incredibly frustrating.
SPEAKER_01It it is frustrating and it's also disappointing, right? Because not only don't I have misdemeanor jurisdiction in the cities that some of this officer are complaining, but you know, even if I did. You know, I kind of look at police in some ways, and I and and I want to be clear because I, you know, I don't I'm not saying that the police should be like an army because no, they shouldn't. But you know, we expect our armies to work under the authority of a civilian government. And the army should not dictate the armed forces should not dictate policy, and police departments should not dictate public policy, right? The public policy should be set by city council members, mayors, boards of supervisors, elected district attorneys. Yep. Uh the job of the police is to implement the policies and the laws that are given to them. And the misdemeanor under the books is a crime, and under the right settled circumstances serves an arrest, and what the consequences of the arrest will be, that's for the system to handle. Not necessarily for the office to walk away from their responsibilities and say, well, I'm not going to do anything about it because other people want. That's not what your job is.
SPEAKER_00Yep. Let me ask about another way in which you have been markedly different from your your predecessor, um, and that's uh exonerations. Right? I mean, one of the things that I think really uh frustrates people about the system is when they they hear about somebody who has been wrongfully incarcerated, whether it's you know a a DNA test clears them, or you you and I both know Frankie Carillo, who's running for state assembly, who was sentenced to life, and it turns out he didn't do it. Um so many of those those cases. Can you talk about what your approach has been and how many exonerations you've granted?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so you know, we've granted 14. We just requested two more this week. Um, and we, you know, the way that we arrive at exonerations is generally one of two ways. Either somebody's in prison and reaches out and says, hey, you know, I'm I didn't do it. And you know, by the way, most of the people that say that, you know, we look at them and say, we can't help you right now. And then the one that we get the bulk of the cases is from people like, you know, innocence projects and different, you know, like Loyola Law School, there's uh other groups or lawyers that that do this work, they specialize in this work, and they generally have cases that they they have you know worked for some time, they have come to the conclusion that the person is innocent, they were wrongfully convicted, they provide the information, and then we we go out to investigate a case independently of them to confirm what they're saying. But what we do differently than what my predecessor did is number one, we have a real uh conviction integrity that is really looking at cases. You know, she exonerated, I believe, one in eight years. Uh, we've done hopefully 16 in four, uh, maybe even seventeen before the end of the year. So we're serious about it, right? We go out, we we go with the premise that if we find the evidence to show that this person did not commit the crime, then we're gonna exonerate him. Um the other part that I think it sets us apart is that we believe that the credibility of the system writes on the integrity of the system. And when someone is wrongfully convicted, not only do you lose the credibility as to that individual, but you have entire families and after entire communities that say, Well, you know, the system doesn't work well for me, right? And therefore, I don't trust it, I'm not going to go to it when I need it, I'm gonna take care of things on my own. And when you need to cooperate, perhaps to help the system work, then you won because you walk away from it. And and I'll give you a just a classic example. We had two cases this week, two young people, a 15-year-old boy and a 20-year-old young woman at the time, they've been in prison now for about 18, 17, 18 years. Uh, they were sent to prison for 50 years to life, by the way. Uh murders that they did not commit. And when you see the police interrogation, which we had the video, um, and you see how they were interrogated, how these young women kept Saying, you know, I'm innocent, and they keep badgering her, and she never deviated from that. He, on the other hand, after about two hours saying he was innocent in many different ways, they leave him alone for about 15 minutes. He doesn't know he's being video and audio taped. He's literally praying and crying, you know, God help me, you know, tell the officers, and then finally the cops come in and say, you know, you're if you don't come clean, we have the your co-defendant next door, which by the way, um, they did not know each other. Which flies in the face, so they're supposed to work in together. Right, yeah. She's pointing the finger at you. The more senior people in the gang are pointing the finger at you. We have video of you doing it. We have all these witnesses, and he's like saying, But I didn't. But anyway, he says, Okay, so what do you want me to tell you basically? So he starts to describe the crime in a way that it didn't occur, like really markedly different. And then one, you know, I and and just very quickly, I don't want to get in, lose a lot of time here, but you know, he talks about the crime occurring during the daytime. No, I didn't. Then he says, we walk up to them and they were running. No, I didn't. They were inside a car. Uh then he said, you know, I had a revolver. Well, it didn't, you know, and he said, Maybe if I had a revolver, and then and the detective says, no, you know, and they walk him around. But at one point he tells the detective, we did it, we actually did an Instagram post on this. We we kind of snipped this out. We had his permission to do it. And he says, you know, innocent, I guess innocent people get convicted. And the office says, the detective says, Do you have any statistics to prove that? So we did the Instagram where I said, We do some statistics to prove that, right? So it's like, how can you do that? And then the prosecutor views this video and they realize that the video will be a problem in front of a jury. So they don't produce the video, they don't use a video, they have three witnesses, they have two young girls that uh are far away from the they're in the same parking lot, but they're kind of on the other end of the parking lot, who said, Well, they kind of look like, you know, but in fact, during the court they said, Well, I think the skin, blah, blah, blah. No, no definitive identification. And then the the second victim who survives is fiance of the guy that gets killed. And this is a drug deal that went bad. They were killed in their car. People walk up to them, shot him, and kill him. Um, she gets shot too. When the the guys are coming with a gun, she ducks. She's wearing trifocal glasses. So that tells you that there is actually some vision impairment. It's at nighttime, and she sees a guy coming with a gun, she ducks. She identifies this kid and this woman out of a book of many photos of alleged gang members. This 15-year-old had no history of gang crimes. He was put on the book because he associated with a gang, white fans in the neighborhood. She didn't have any history of gang crimes. In fact, there were only two females in the entire gang book of pictures. So, you know, you flip a coin, one of them had to be. And they were both Latina women looking very similar. That's how they get picked. There was no physical evidence, there was no video, there was nothing else. The prosecutor was sitting on this video that clearly a jury would have said, oh hell no. And they get convicted, then they get added gang enhancements, gun enhancements for the young boy, because he was a gang member with a gun. They go to prison for you know, they get wrongfully convicted and in prison for almost two decades, and but for, you know, uh some people taking on the case, bringing to our attention, and now we're trying to get him exonerated, and hopefully the court agrees with us. But in the middle of all this, the original prosecutor now is fighting us, and he wants to file a motion in the court. So, what evidence do you have? He says, Well, I know my victims.
SPEAKER_00To me, it sounds like that prosecutor should be prosecuted, but I I gotta ask, what does that feel like to be able to undo that injustice to see somebody walk free and reunite with their family?
SPEAKER_01Look, it's it's incredibly rewarding. We have a a, you know, we have, like I said, 14 other example. We got a young, well, a young man. Yeah, you know, when you get my age, everybody's a young person if they're younger than you are. Uh Miguel Solorios, who was also wrongfully convicted of murder. Uh, he was in prison for 23, 25 years, same thing. He was sort of railroaded. And, you know, he's now he's now free. He's uh he's with his uh wife, and he's got a dog, and uh and he called his dog Freedom. It's the name of the dog. And you listen to him tell us his story, and it's just so inspiring. And he's one of, like I said, uh 14 others. And of course, you and I have a mutual friend, Frankie Carrillo, which we both know him for years. It's so inspiring to see these people come out, and you know what's really interesting about all of them up to now, not one of them comes back as a bitter person. They come back and that's amazing to me, which is amazing to me. You know, I look at Frankie Carrillo, he actually would go to dinner with the women that put him in person.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01And you said, Man, that's a bigger person than I am.
SPEAKER_00I I'm I'm in awe. Yeah. Uh I'm in awe.
SPEAKER_01You can forgive that person.
SPEAKER_00And uh to listeners, I'll put a link in the show notes to the the Netflix uh episodes about the documentary about Frankie, uh, as well as to the episode where I spoke to him a few weeks ago. Um one other topic I wanted to discuss with you is your different approach towards uh prosecuting uh police officers. Uh your predecessor, that was not something she was into. Um you've actually taken a fresh look at stuff and you've moved forward on a few.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so we have. I mean, we did a couple of things. You know, we had a community group that looked at a bunch of them. Uh that were questionable, frankly, a lot, frankly, a lot of they were either too old or there was not enough evidence to go anywhere. There were four that were given to special prosecutor. Uh, he's already moved forward with one, uh, and he's looking at another one. But then internally in the office, we also started looking at a lot of cases. We've now prosecuted about 156 police officers. I think it's 15 or 14 for use of force, seven for use of deadly force. Got the first conviction of use of deadly force in over 22 years in the county. And you know what I tell people, I begin by saying, Look, I'm not anti-police. I was a cop for over 30 years. Uh I I internally I I'm very LAPD, right? And I have a tremendous amount of respect for men and women in uniform that are doing the job and doing it right, which most of them are, yeah, most of the time. But I also know that in order for our system to be credible to everybody, not just the selected few, we have to hold the the the actors in the system, meaning police, prosecutors, judges, we have to hold ourselves accountable. Right? Because if we don't hold ourselves accountable to the same standards that we would hold the rest of the community, then it becomes a mockery the entire system, right? And when a police officer uses excessive force, or where they lie in the stand, or when they steal while they're on duty, you know, that that has the significance of that is so even so much higher than the average person because unlike the rest of us, you know, police officers are given the authority of the community, they're given the authority to use force, including deadly force, and take a life under certain conditions, they're given the authority to take somebody's freedom away from that. That is an awesome responsibility. And if if you're going to be the carrier of that trust from the community and be given all that authority, then you have to be willing to stand up to a higher level and make sure that that authority is never of use. And for me, I think good policing requires, and I think good police officers actually they may not say it openly, but they understand that when somebody breaks that public trust, it hurts all of them. Yeah, it hurts everybody else in the force. And and I think that most cops that are honest, and I mean I don't mean honest in the way that I'm gonna say, but they're honest to themselves, intellectually honest. They know when people are being prosecuted because they've downrun. They may not openly say that the peer pressure is too great to be the one saying so, but they understand why this occurs.
SPEAKER_00This has been a a a very tough, grueling campaign. Uh not your first tough campaign, but it's been a particularly tough one. Uh you're you're getting vilified, you're getting attacked, there's tons of money against you, all sorts of lies being being spread, uh, a lot of them from people who are you know police officers, you know, the police officers union. Um how do you stay stay going on this? I mean, I it was tough when I when I was dealing with stuff. Uh what keeps you grounded, centered, and and keeps you moving?
SPEAKER_01Well, look, I mean, first of all, I I have an incredible family life, right? I mean, I have a great wife, I have great kids, I have a wonderful dog. Uh I have probably the best campaign team that that anybody running for public office could ever have. And I say that with not only with uh 100% sincerity and certainty, but I have experience because I've run them, you know, I've been in elected office now for a while, so I've had different teams, and this team by far it exceeds anything that anybody running for office could ever ask for. That makes a huge difference. I have a really good team of people in my office that are very committed to the work, and then you know, we have an incredible amount of community support, right? And I believe that what we do, and if you notice, I very seldom say I, because it's not an I thing, it's a we. What we do is making a difference in so many people's lives, so many communities, both protecting the safety of our community, but also ensuring that the system is more even, that it's more fair, that there's more humanity in the way that we do the work. Um, you know, in four years we've done so much. Um when you think about you know the prior 40 years, right? Uh whether you're talking about you know putting kids into you know into systems that are less likely to overcriminalize and taking people out of death route, holding police accountable, and at the same time seeing crime coming down, right? Um and prosecuting people that are causing harm at the same rates as they have before, but doing it in a much more intelligent way. That to me is is fueling my passion, and and I truly believe that you know there's a better future for all of us. And a better future cannot be going back to what we used to do that has been a total failure. So I'm very motivated, I'm very driven, not only by what we're doing today, but more importantly, what what I think the future will bring if we continue to do things this way.
SPEAKER_00Campaigns are full of ups and downs, surprises, uh sometimes indignities, uh try new and and and different things you wouldn't do otherwise. Did you ever think at the beginning of this campaign you'd be recording TikTok videos?
SPEAKER_01No. I believe that we as human beings should not take ourselves very seriously, but I'm clumsy. I'm I'm very clumsy, I readily admit it.
SPEAKER_00I am too.
SPEAKER_01And and you know, uh we've had incidents actually in the first campaign in 2020, that's when TikTok was becoming a thing. And we had some friends that had some uh young kids, you know, that were in their late teens, and they were starting to do a lot of TikToking, and they wanted me to do some. And and I said, I could never do that, I just don't know how to do that. And then, you know, I saw people um starting increasingly to use TikTok as a means of serious communication. Yeah. Or at least serious messaging. You know, maybe the the way that the communication was took place was funny, but you know, messaging some serious stuff and understanding that it's a means of communication for younger people. And so much of what we do is actually trying to reach that crowd, right? Because they're the future of our community. Uh, and so, you know, one thing led to another. And I remember listening to Ken Mejia, who's a friend and a strong supporter. You know, he did an entire campaign on TikTok, not clearly. He's a he's a young guy in his early 30s. Um, but that was it. He raised very little money. Yeah, he did. He he just and he beat a an incompass, you know, somebody with a lot of time and experience in politics. So, you know, it was a combination of wanting very badly to communicate with with a generation that generally people of my age struggle, even though the message and the things that we're doing are really more about them than anybody else, because they're the ones that are gonna be here 20, 30 years from now, right? Yeah, yeah. Um and so the idea has you know, surface that, you know, do this, and we have some volunteers that are young, uh, they're in their late teens, and so one thing led to the other. And and to be honest with you, I mean, the as clumsy as I'm also I I enjoy making fun of myself, right? I enjoy sometimes being silly. Uh my kids would tell you that I'm crazy because I'll do all kinds of stuff, even with my grandkids. And they said, How do you do that? You know, I'll get in four legs and act like a horse or whatever, you know, and and do it and have a lot of fun at it.
SPEAKER_00And and your campaign team is very happy that you have not done a TikTok video of you on all fours as a horse.
SPEAKER_01No, yeah.
SPEAKER_00She's giving a thumbs up to that in the background.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. But anyway, so you know, we've done some of those, right? And they've been a lot of fun. And it's kind of interesting because um, you know, a reporter, I'm not gonna use his name, but uh that that, you know, I would say very biased reporting, and actually, you know, describe what was really a moment of, you know, just being silly and playing with one another and self-deprecating and turn it into like somehow I was like this nervous and sweating, which I was not. And he's saying, like, uh, you and I were not in the same place at the same time. But, you know, I mean, I I know I'm giving you a long answer. No, I mean, I don't think I've ever thought that I would be doing TikToks, but I have to tell you that I have fun doing them. And if you ask me, would you do them again? I would say, hell yes, because it's a lot of fun. And if I communicate, then then it works.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'll I'll give you a piece of advice from my 10-year-old. He is a big advocate for TikTok. He's always trying to get me to do more, although he thinks my TikTok videos are boring. His piece of advice to to get more views and to go viral is cat filters. Oh, so talk to your talk to your teenage advisors and see how that works out. That could that could be what puts you over the the the top and let's do it.
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, we may try the cat filters.
SPEAKER_00Before we go, any final words you want to leave with the voters?
SPEAKER_01Well, first of all, Mike, thank you for the opportunity. You know, listen, what I want to tell the voters is it's really simple. Look, if you want if you believe that the death penalty is a good thing, if you believe that, you know, mass incarceration worked, if you believe that the war on drugs worked, if you believe that, you know, uh police accountability is not a thing, if you're not really concerned about the environment because you think everything is good, um my opponent is your guy. Okay. However, if you believe that that the safety of our community is dependent on a fair application of the law, if you believe that protecting our environment is important, if you believe that the death penalty is not a thing that we should be using in a modern human society, if you believe that we can be better than we were, then I am your candidate and I and I would be extremely honored if when you vote that you vote for me and that you tell your friends and you tell others that are in your network, because the only way that we're gonna continue to grow and get to a better place is by working together and understanding that doing the same things that have failed in the past is not gonna get us to a better place today.
SPEAKER_00Already mailed my ballot in, checked your name. Thank you. Uh thank you for uh your your courage and thank you for your service. Uh and thank you for fighting the good fight. My pleasure. And thanks, and thanks for being here with me.
SPEAKER_01Thanks, Mike. Appreciate you. Thank you. Bye.
unknownBye.
SPEAKER_00And that does it for this episode of What's Next Los Angeles. My thanks to George Gascone for joining me today. My thanks to my friend Martha Avery for editing, and my thanks to LA Forward for partnering with me and sponsoring this podcast. If you have any questions about this particular race or really almost anything on your ballot, go to the show notes and get and you'll find the link to the LA Forward Progressive Voter Guide, which covers so many races all around Los Angeles County. It's a really important resource. And speaking of important resources, if you need to find out where to drop off your ballot, you want to see your sample ballot, you want to track your ballot, you want to figure out where to vote in person, go check out the County Registrar Recorders website. That's lavote.gov. And finally, if you haven't yet, uh go back to your podcast feed and find the latest episode of the all-new LA Podcast. Uh, brought to you by LA Forward with this week with me and Alyssa Walker and Rachel Reyes and Godfrey Plata and David Levitis. It's a special October surprise pre-election episode. Hope you enjoy that. Until next time, thanks so much. Take good care and peace.