Is the Times Finally Turning on Gascon?

Restoration. Rehabilitation. Second chances. Equity. 

Those are at the heart of the progressive criminal justice movement and at the core of the Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon’s policies of law enforcement, or non-enforcement, as is more typical.

And it seems those policies got another person murdered.

And it seems that even the Los Angeles Times – the staunch bastion of proper-thinking and woke rules, and an organization that has covered for and carried water for Gascon since before he was elected DA in 2020 – has even noticed that people are being killed by people who should still be behind bars.

In 2018, when he was 16, Denmonne Lee planned and participated in the murder of John Ruh, an Antelope Valley former (never ex) Marine who Lee knew. Ruh was behind the counter at the VP Fuels and Drive-Thru Dairy when Lee asked him for a cigarette. In that moment of distraction, Lee’s partner – Deonta “Fatboy” Johnson – held up and shot Ruh. The two left, with Lee – according to court records – smiling on his way out the door.

Jackie Lacey was district attorney at the time and she moved to try Lee as an adult. But as the case wound its way through the courts, something happened – Lacey lost her re-election bid and Gascon took over and it was Gascon and his policy of never trying juveniles as adults that led to Lee being out of the juvenile detention system by June, 2023 and in time to participate (allegedly) in another murder this past January.

Lee was sentenced to be held until he was 25 years old, about the time, Gascon has said, that a person’s brain is developed enough to be truly culpable for a crime. But Lee appeared to be a model detainee and got out about two years early and in January Eric Ruffins, 28, was shot and killed near Compton. Lee was, again, not the alleged trigger man but was charged with murder as an accomplice.

Kathy Cady, a former deputy district attorney who acts as a pro bono victims-rights attorney for numerous people wronged by Gascon’s office, including Ruh’s widow, said that “if Gascón hadn’t stopped [Lee] being tried in adult court, he’d be in prison for life. Instead, he was freed to commit another horrific murder. Lee showed an incredible cruelty, threatened and intimidated witnesses and still Gascon went through trying him as a juvenile.”

It should be noted that at the time of his 2018 arrest, Lee was a known gang member. While in juvenile custody awaiting prosecution, Lee used a smuggled mobile phone to send a death threat to his ex-girlfriend, who had allegedly reported him to law enforcement. Each of these issues should have been giant red flags for Gascon, Cady said.

While his fate in the Ruffins murder is not yet known, Lee was, paradoxically, practically a poster boy for Gascon’s reforms. He had good probation department reports while a detainee, an early move into a non-secure facility, enrolling in community college, and was even working for a non-profit advocacy group for a time.

And yet, another (alleged) murder.

As for the Times coverage of the case it can only be called surprising. It actually has negative statements about Gascon, it questions his policies, and it notes that this case will be a particularly important issue in his campaign to be re-elected as Los Angeles County DA.

The story even quoted Ruh’s widow, Michelle Brace, in a way that can only be called sympathetic:

“Denmonne, you were given a gift and you squandered that gift. Against my family’s wishes, I had hope that you would change and help your community. I will always pray for you and your safety. You broke my heart when I heard you were in trouble again,” she said in court earlier this month. “You gave me hope when you apologized to me about killing … my husband. I forgave you, now I feel like a fool.”

In an interview, Brace said that even though she supported Lee’s progress in the juvenile system, she has long been frustrated with Gascón’s initial refusal to try him as an adult.

“He didn’t know what he was doing with his directives and the lives they’d shatter,” said Brace, who plans to leave California, but not before the November election. “I won’t move until George Gascón is out of office.”

Of course, the Times talked to its usual suspects who tried to downplay the significance of the event and, for the most part, claimed that they doubt a court would have let Gascon try Lee as an adult anyway considering his lack of a previous record:

Some criminologists — as well as a Times’ analysis of court data — have cast doubt on attempts to solely blame Gascón’s policies for crime rate fluctuations, and his handling of the initial murder case against Lee isn’t too far out of step with the way California’s criminal justice system is treating teens…

“People often leave prison more dangerous than when they went in,” said Sean Garcia-Leys, co-executive director of the Peace and Justice Law Center in Fullerton. “We have to look at what data shows about the effectiveness of different types of sentences at reducing recidivism.”

He wasn’t in prison, Sean, and the data Gascon, for example, has relied upon is meager at best, fatally faulty at worst.

But the Times admits that the Lee case plays directly into the public’s mood of mistrust and loathing of Gascon. Polls show large majorities of LA residents feel much less safe than they did four years ago and Gascon’s “favorability” poll ratings are 20 points underwater.

Gascon’s opponent in November, Nathan Hochman, blasted him for failing to try Lee properly the first time.

“George Gascon’s inexcusable refusal to prosecute Denmonne Lee in criminal court for the first murder was a miscarriage of justice and now a second victim is dead as a result. Lee should have been in prison instead of on the streets of L.A. when he committed the new murder,” said Hochman. “This is yet another tragic example of the deadly consequences of Gascon’s failed social experiment he’s imposed on the people of Los Angeles County.”

How Gascon – already looking at the aforementioned terrible polling numbers and most likely looking at a steep drop in financial support compared to 2020’s $12 million in campaign funds – can now overcome the clearly softening of support from the Times is not yet specifically known, but you can bet his campaign will do everything it can to tar Hochman as a Trump-loving, MAGA-crazed lunatic who wants to open a dungeon under the Hall of Justice. 

Either way, the campaign story will play out until November and will hopefully make Ms. Brace’s decision to stay in the county just so she can vote against Gascon worth it.