Fresno County District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp continued harping on California Gov. Gavin Newsom and his policies in the wake of Selma police officer Gonzalo Carrasco Jr.
Smittcamp did not hold back during a Friday press conference to announce the charges levied on the suspect, 23-year-old Nathaniel Dixon.
The charges: Dixon was charged with two felony counts: willful, deliberate, premeditated first degree murder and possession of a firearm by a felon. The first count also had three enhancements placed, including the murder of a peace officer.
Smittcamp to Newsom: The pair traded barbs throughout the week, with Smittcamp saying Newsom has blood on his hands and Newsom responding that she should be ashamed of herself and that he is sick and tired of being lectured by her.
- “It’s typical Gavin Newsom,” Smittcamp said Friday. “That’s what he does. When he’s caught flat-footed he responds like a child. That was like a little temper tantrum I think. And he’s deflecting.”
- Building off her comments earlier in the week that Newsom should stop listening to “imposter” district attorney’s, Smittcamp said the governor has aligned himself with Los Angeles DA George Gascon and former San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin, who she referred to as imposters.
- “He’s part of those George Sorros funded DAs,” Smittcamp said.
- Smittcamp also attacked Newsom’s record and the California Department of Corrections under him and Gov. Jerry Brown, calling it “college for criminals,” adding that criminals are elevated in their gangs in prison and come out worse than when they went in.
- “What has he done well? The DMV is a mess. The prisons are a mess. Education’s a mess. We have more homeless and more violent criminals out on the street, more guns.,” Smittcamp said. “EDD, let’s talk about that – the hundreds of billions of dollars that went out the door under his watch. But do you know what he’s done really well? He’s abolished parole. He’s neutered the parole department. Because guess what – talk about defunding the police. He’s defunded parole.”
- “Officer Carrasco’s death is going to shine light on this madness and this anarchy if it is the last thing that I do,” Smittcamp said.
State of play: In answer to a question about the situation turning political, Fresno County Sheriff John Zanoni laid the blame at Sacramento politicians for allowing Carrasco’s death occur in the first place.
- “This is a failed system. It’s broken. Take this incident out of it. It’s been broken for a while. It’s failing. This experiment of our criminal justice reform is not working. I hate to use this incident or even mention it, but the issue that I have is we’re dealing with legislators and elected individuals. That’s politics,” Zanoni said. “So in order to prevent something like this from happening again to a police officer or deputy sheriff or a member of our community, you have to make it somewhat political to get the message out to those politicians, – because that’s what they are in Sacramento, they’re politicians – to make changes to legislation and law to make improvements so we can better protect people in our communities, and especially our police officers. This is outrageous.”
- Smittcamp urged people to vote if they would like to see change to the state’s criminal justice approach. She also said the situation is political because nobody cares about the thousands of similar incidents that occur every day across the Golden State, but the nature of Carrasco being a police officer thrusts the story under a spotlight.
- “If people want to try to accuse us of politicizing this and taking advantage of it or exploiting the death of Officer Carrasco, they can do it all day long because that’s not the truth,” Smittcamp said. “The truth is we are here because this is our reality. Every day these officers that wear these badges go out and risk their lives. They might not come home to their families every single day because of the irresponsibility of the people in Sacramento who have never worn a badge, who don’t know anything about law enforcement, who’ve never prosecuted a case, who’ve never defended one of these people, who’s never been one of their probation officers. And they continue to implement these policies which are the agendas of the people who fill their coffers. Because no decent and smart human being can think that this is a good idea. It’s awful.”
