Michael Rushford
The next is a letter by Councilmember James R. Bozajian from the Los Angeles County metropolis of Calabasas. Hat tip to the LA’s Affiliation of Deputy District Attorneys:
I’m in receipt of your latest letter, inviting the Calabasas Metropolis Council to fulfill with you to debate your imaginative and prescient for the District Lawyer’s Workplace. For the next causes, I need to decline your request.
On the very day you assumed workplace, you introduced a sequence of “reforms” seemingly designed with precision to show the District Lawyer’s Workplace upside-down. Your actions since then have solely aggravated the damaging results of those ill-conceived measures.
You enacted these draconian insurance policies with out soliciting enter from legislation enforcement, public officers, most people, and even your personal (skilled) prosecutors. As an alternative, you relied solely upon a cadre of hostile, excessive partisans whose sole aims seem to have been to defund, demolish, and destroy our felony justice system.
The final word results of which, merely put, is that Los Angeles County has turn into a vastly extra harmful place to reside because you grew to become its chief prosecutor
Right here in Calabasas, crime has soared to unprecedented heights. From 2020 to 2021, the crime price jumped 35%. Residential burglaries doubled, leaping from 19 in 2020 to 42 in 2021. Within the first two months of 2022, the crime price has risen one more 54%, and now we have had a further 10 residential burglaries. If the present patterns maintain, then, crime in Calabasas could have doubled between 2020 and 2022, whereas residential burglaries could have tripled. These are the very best will increase, by far, since Calabasas integrated in 1991.
Your angle towards severe and violent crime is epitomized by your mishandling of Folks v. Jeffrey Cooper (BA464633), a matter which originates out of Calabasas and has affected the lives of many in our group.
Defendant Cooper is charged with 4 severe/violent felonies: one rely of Penal Code Part 288.7(b), oral copulation or sexual penetration by an grownup of a kid 10 years of age or underneath; and three counts of Penal Code Part 288(a), fee of a lewd or lascivious act by an grownup on a baby underneath the age of 14 years. If convicted of all costs, the defendant could possibly be sentenced to a most time period of 39 years to life in State Jail.
This case has languished for the previous 4 years, having had numerous proceedings in courtroom on 62 events. In the meantime, Cooper is out of custody and wandering about city. The abject refusal of the District Lawyer’s Workplace to deal with this matter in knowledgeable method is deeply troubling, and undermines public confidence within the felony justice system.
If the defendant right here is responsible, his victims, their households, and most people have the appropriate to see that an acceptable punishment is exacted. Conversely, if the defendant isn’t responsible of those crimes, he has the appropriate to be formally exonerated.
After I despatched you a letter of inquiry concerning the standing of the Cooper case final yr, you uncared for to answer. After I subsequently filed two requests pursuant to the California Public Information Act (Authorities Code 6250, et seq.), you arrogantly ignored them and failed to reply as required by legislation.
There may be nothing “progressive” about endangering the welfare of the general public you might be sworn to guard. Your insurance policies have jeopardized the security of my metropolis. You will have jeopardized the security of my metropolis. And I subsequently haven’t any confidence in your willingness or potential to serve successfully as District Lawyer.
It’s abundantly clear that you’re solely now reaching out to native elected officers since you are in deep trouble. Which is a traditional instance of too little, too late. Your help has collapsed, as conservatives, liberals, and just about everybody in between perceive the numerous threats you’ve got delivered to our communities.
So, no thanks, Mr. Gascon. I cannot give you any political “cowl” to assist salvage your place.
Signed,
James R. Bozajian
jrbozajian@earthlink.internet
Calabasas Metropolis Councilmember (1997 to current)
Deputy District Lawyer, Los Angeles County (1990 to 2014)
Previous President, Los Angeles County Affiliation of Deputy District Attorneys