George Gascón was elected Los Angeles County district attorney in 2020, a convulsive year in which Americans’ lives were upended by the pandemic and public confidence in the criminal justice system was shaken by the murder of George Floyd. The latter led to a reckoning over racial inequity in arrests, prosecutions and punishment. Voters wanted Gascón to set a corrective course in the nation’s largest local jurisdiction while keeping people safe.
He is doing what he promised, and doing it well, despite intense and dishonest backlash from opponents inside his office and among right-wing politicians and pundits across the nation. L.A. County voters would be wise to reject the nonsense and keep Gascón on the job and criminal justice reform in place.