Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón rallied around 90 supporters September 28 at SEIU Local 2015 for a get out the vote event.
Gascón is running for a second term and is being challenged by Nathan Hochman, a former federal prosecutor and United States Assistant Attorney General.
Following the rally Gascón spoke exclusively with Annenberg Media about the state of the race, his plans for a second term and responded to criticisms of his policies.
Gascón said with 36 days ahead of the election his campaign’s focus needs to be connecting with and educating voters.
“We know that we’re fighting a tremendous amount of misinformation concerning crime, concerning the policies, and for my opponent it’s all about misinformation, and quite frankly, sometimes lying and we understand that that carries especially when you have a lot of money to put that information out there,” said Gascón.
He also responded to criticism that he is “soft on crime” and noted that he was a police officer for over 30 years and also served as Chief of Police in Mesa, Arizona and San Francisco.
Gascón told Annenberg Media that his office has prosecuted over 100,000 felonies and violent crimes during his time in office and said that was on par with prosecutions over the last 10 years.
“When you look at crime numbers and you look per capita crime is lower than most of our neighboring communities,” Gascón claimed. “The city of LA now two years in a row, crime down, homicides, historic lows.”
But Gascón said that while holding people accountable, he simultaneously wants to “prevent over-criminalizing communities.”
“Understanding that if there is no trust in the system, people are going to be less likely to cooperate with us, with the police or the prosecutors, holding ourselves, holding police, holding prosecutors accountable to the truth.”
When asked about the over 200 assistant district attorneys who are publicly endorsing his opponent, Gascón said that it was only a fraction of the office.
“The reality is that for many people who have been doing business the way we have for many years with mass incarceration and overly punitive process, coming in and actually moving in a different direction is very shocking to their system,” said Gascón. “But I will also say that clearly the majority of the men and women of the office have not endorsed him. We’ve hired 115 lawyers just in the last three years and those people are coming to the office to work the way that we want to.”
Gascón said in a second term he would continue to focus on public safety in a way that is “thoughtful” and “equitable.”
“When we’re talking about organized retail theft, not only are we dealing with the people that are stealing, robbing, but we’re also dealing with the people that are providing a process to be able to sell the stolen merchandise.”
Gascón won the primary with 25.2% while Hochman received 15.9% support in a field of 12 candidates.
Election day is November 5.