Warning: Graphic content.
A Los Angeles teen convicted of plowing a car into a mother and her 8-month-old son in a drug-fueled hit-and-run will spend just five months in a “diversionary program” thanks to soft on crime LA County District Attorney George Gascon. The teen’s record will reportedly be wiped clean when he turns 18.
That’s not justice, that’s a joke.
The 16-year-old driver was driving down a one-way street in the wrong direction in Venice, California when he appeared to rev his engine and purposely aim the car at the victims in the shocking August, 2021 crime. He then tried to drive away from the scene but was stopped when a pickup truck purposefully crashed into his car, forcing him into a pole. (No word on who the apparent Good Samaritan was.)
Luckily both the mother Rachel and her baby Charlie survived the vicious, apparently random, attack.
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It wasn’t enough to move George Gascon, though. According to the DA’s office, the teen was only charged with two felony counts of assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury and one felony count of hit and run.
Why not attempted murder, which is clearly what this was?
People like Gascon care more about protecting criminals than the people they victimize.
— Jeff Charles (@JeffOnTheRight) June 4, 2022
The mother, who was only identified as Rachel, was stunned by the sentence, writing in her victim impact statement:
“George Gascon 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 driver] by demonstrating to them that their actions have no consequences,” she wrote. “DA Gascon is telling him and every other thug in LA County that it doesn’t matter if you try to murder people. Why are Gascon’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?”
The DA’s office, as has been their custom since Gascon took over, minimized the crime and showed more concern for the criminal than they did for the victims:
“Fortunately, the baby was uninjured and the mother received a laceration to her elbow. The Sheriff’s Department agreed with the felony charges that were filed,” the office said. [Not true. We explain below.] “The Probation Department recommended and the court sentenced the minor to a youth camp for five to seven months, an appropriate resolution.”
An appropriate resolution? A laceration to the elbow?! That is how cold this man is. Compare that to Rachel’s description of her injuries:
I was left with blood all over my body. I needed stitches in my right elbow after it split open when I hit the ground after rolling off of the windshield. The top of my right shoulder was skinned nearly to the bone, but you can’t stitch that skin together. I was left with road rash all over both arms, wrists, and elbows. Shards of glass continued to work their way out of my skin for 2 months after the attack. I had massive bruising up and down my left side body from where the car hit my leg and how I landed on the hood and windshield and bruising on my hips from car impact and also the fall down to the asphalt.
We have written recently about how a judge slapped down Gascon in a ruling on June 2 that rebuked him for not following the law, how there’s a strong recall effort underway, and how crime numbers have surged in the county since his unfortunate arrival. But sometimes numbers aren’t enough—one needs a visual to understand. The sickening video above shows just what happens when you let crime run wild. The callousness Gascon shows in his “laceration to the elbow” comment is mind-blowing after you watch that and then read about her injuries.
Also inflaming the situation is one sentence in the DA’s statement, “the Sheriff’s Department agreed with the felony charges that were filed.” LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, no fan of Gascon’s, quickly shot down that falsehood. He wrote on Facebook:
We were never consulted as we were not the investigating agency. Sheriff’s investigators would never be OK with the lightweight sentencing in this hit-and-run case. Stop empowering and encouraging criminal behavior. Hold them accountable #VictimsMatter.
After being caught red-handed like that, the DA had to walk back the claim in yet another bad look for him. Not only is he soft on crime, but he’s making false statements to try and hide it.
We’ve said it before: George Gascon is a menace to Los Angeles, and he has almost single-handedly made the county a haven for criminals and violence, where thugs plan to get his name tattooed on their faces in gratitude. This horrific video and the victim’s touching statements highlight in a way that numbers and words can’t.
Gascon seems to utterly lack humanity and compassion.
