The Los Angeles wildfires have been an incredible display of incompetence by city leaders, but there is at least one adult actually running things: Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman.
The recently-elected Hochman has made crime illegal again in Los Angeles, announcing charges against nine looters taking advantage of the fires to steal from the homes of people in evacuated areas. A tenth suspect is facing arson charges. Multiple suspects have previous felony convictions, and at least two are facing life in prison under California’s three-strikes law. The fire allegedly started by the arson suspect was contained quickly, but he is still facing nine years on felony arson and arson during a state of emergency charges.
“If you exploit this tragedy to prey on victims of these deadly fires, we will find you, and we will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law,” Hochman said.
Hochman sees what needs to be done to protect residents of Los Angeles and then takes action under his government’s powers to do so. Maybe the city should have put him in charge of the water system, too.
This is a drastic change from Hochman’s predecessor, George Gascon, a criminal justice reform fanatic who prioritized keeping criminals out of jail above keeping residents of Los Angeles safe. Gascon said Hochman’s campaign promises to prosecute criminals “to the fullest extent of the law” were politically motivated, and Gascon’s own deputies had to sue him for permission to pursue that against repeat criminals.
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You do not need to dive into hypotheticals about what Gascon’s handling of these looters would look like using his rhetoric and his track record of letting violent attempted murderers off the hook until they go on to successfully murder someone and various other soft-on-crime decisions. Gascon openly refused to enforce California’s three-strikes law, another matter on which he was dragged to court and reprimanded for violating state law in pursuit of his prison abolition paradise. These looters, career criminals with previous felony convictions who have proven they cannot function in society, would not be facing life in prison under Gascon.
Hochman, a former Republican turned independent as of 2023, is a perfect example of what happens when California voters look to substance and vote against the Democratic monopoly on power. It took a crime crisis for Los Angeles voters to see things this way, but now maybe they will start to view the Democratic monopoly on the mayor’s office with similar scrutiny.