LA County district attorney race heats up over latest crime statistics

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The California Department of Justice crime statistics for 2023 were released this month, and one man is hoping they will play a big role in the upcoming Los Angeles district attorney election.

Nathan Hochman, the former federal prosecutor who is running against incumbent District Attorney George Gascón, says the new statistics show that Gascón's policies have led to dramatic increases in violent crimes and property crimes.

"Gascón's statements that crime has dropped during his tenure have turned out to be an entire lie," Hochman said Tuesday. "He is trying to manipulate those statistics in his favor. Turns out it's failing."

Hochman's claims are based on the latest California DOJ stats and compare crimes committed in 2023 to those in 2020, the year Gascón took office.

During those three years, violent crimes in L.A. County rose 12%, robberies are up 16%, property crimes are up 20%, shoplifting is up 133%, auto theft is up 23% and burglaries are up 8%.

In each single year, violent crimes, property crimes, shoplifting are up either double digits, single digits or in some cases with hate crime, triple digits," Hochman told Eyewitness News. "Gascón cannot dodge or gaslight the public."

The difference in numbers is due to the areas covered by the stats. Hochman says Gascón's claims are based on crimes committed within the city of Los Angeles, using LAPD statistics. Hochman is relying on the California DOJ statistics that cover both city and county crimes.

"When you take in the entire county's data, when you look over a four year expanse of the entire tenure of George Gascón, his record is a record of pubic safety failure.

Gascón was out of town Tuesday and unavailable for an interview, but his campaign issued a written response to Hochman's claims that he was distorting crime stats:

"Actually DA Gascón's prosecution rates for violent crimes are consistent across a 10-year span of the office's history. Mr. Hochman's fear mongering about violent crime not being prosecuted is simply untrue and the voters deserve better."