Los Angeles’ controversial district attorney is under fire again after a teen in a horrifying hit-and-run caught on video was given a light diversionary sentence.
According to Fox News, a California teen convicted of plowing his vehicle into a mom and her 8-month-old boy will only spend five months in a diversionary program. That’s all courtesy of Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón, who’s already faced one recall for his soft-on-crime ways.
Most notably, Gascón’s office refused to try a 26-year-old transgender child molester as an adult for an assault he committed just weeks before he turned 18.
(Gascón isn’t the only progressive DA plunging his city into ruin because of the progressive policies he’s pushed. Here at The Western Journal, we’ve chronicled how leftist approaches to law enforcement have caused numerous big cities to become crime-ridden cesspools. We’ll continue to bring America the truth — and you can help us by subscribing.)
In the Aug. 6, 2021, hit-and-run in Venice, California, a 16-year-old ran into a mother — who asked to only be identified as “Rachel” — and her infant.
The driver was speeding the wrong way down a back street that didn’t have any sidewalks.
Police sources said the hit-and-run driver claimed the victim popped out of nowhere. He tried to flee the scene, but was stopped by a pickup driver who rammed his car.
“I thought those were the last moments of our lives; we were dead,” Rachel said in her victim statement. “That feeling, along with the memory of a car accelerating directly into us, will haunt me forever.”
Should this hit-and-run driver’s sentence have been longer?
“As the car approached me and my child, I stopped walking and moved the stroller and myself up against a building on the right side of the road to ensure that we gave the reckless driver plenty of room to pass,” the statement continued.
“As the car got dangerously close to us, [the juvenile suspect] turned the wheels in our direction and accelerated as he aimed to kill us.”
She said she could see the whites of the hit-and-run driver’s eyes.
While the 16-year-old was initially charged with a felony for driving while intoxicated. He also could have faced “more serious charges if Gascón’s prosecutors had the leeway to push for them,” Fox News reported.
They didn’t.
“Fortunately, the baby was uninjured, and the mother received a laceration to her elbow,” Gascón’s office told Fox News.
“The Sheriff’s Department agreed with the felony charges that were filed. At arraignment, the minor admitted two felony counts of assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury and one felony count of hit-and-run. The Probation Department recommended, and the court sentenced the minor to a youth camp for five to seven months, an appropriate resolution.”
The diversionary “juvenile probation camp” program is meant to “rehabilitate young people,” Gascón’s office said, and is more lenient than juvenile detention.
“In this case, this teen will be held accountable for his actions and receive the needed services to foster positive development to keep him from committing future offenses,” they added.
As for the mother, she said she lived in fear before he was taken into custody seven months after the collision due to a bench warrant because he skipped court.
After his sentence is done, she added, she’ll continue to fear the teen.
“I was also told that his record would be wiped clean when he turns 18,” the statement.
“How on earth can that be? He tried to murder two innocent pedestrians. Murder. And we have video evidence. My child would be dead if I hadn’t been there to protect him.”
The statement laid the blame for this at the feet of Gascón for not pursuing justice.
“George Gascón doesn’t value my life or the life of my child, or any other victim out there and would rather reward the monsters like [the juvenile suspect] by demonstrating to them that their actions have no consequences,” her victim statement said.
“DA Gascón is telling him and every other thug in LA County that it doesn’t matter if you try to murder people. Why are Gascón’s policies prioritizing the livelihood of rotten monsters when my child, my baby, who is incapable of protecting himself, is left to fend for himself, and is essentially being told his life doesn’t matter?”
Gascón is also facing criticism for leniency in more serious cases — including preventing prosecutors from seeking enhancements that can stiffen penalties, among other things, and not sentencing juvenile offenders as adults.
The most notable case of Gascón’s leniency involves Hannah Tubbs, formerly known as James Edward Tubbs. The transgender male received only two years in a juvenile facility for a 2014 child molestation case. He was later charged with murder in a 2019 case.
“I have never been more surprised or disappointed, and, in fact, I have never felt so victimized as I have by the system and current policies of LA’s DA, George Gascón,” Rachel wrote. “My heart breaks when I think about all of the other victims out there, less fortunate than me, whose murderers are getting lenient sentences and being released from prison before their sentences are complete.”
Gascón, a former San Francisco DA who became Los Angeles’ district attorney in 2020, is facing his second recall effort. Organizers only need 67,000 more signatures by July 6 to force a recall vote. Let’s hope this gets a lot more people to sign on.
