George Gascon was recently elected to be Los Angeles County District Attorney. In part, he won by accusing police of racism and vowing to end it. But a long-overlooked declaration calls into question his sincerity.
Back in 2016, Gascon set out to investigate allegations of racism among police officers in San Francisco. He set up a “Blue Ribbon Panel on Transparency, Accountability, and Fairness.” He had apparently forgotten about his own behavior at a dinner in Massachusetts, but others had not. A retired San Francisco police officer named Gary Delagnes was there. He submitted a declaration, under oath, in which he recounted the evening. The relevant portion is worth quoting in full:
One evening in April 2010, Chief Gascon [and others] had dinner in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where we were attending a Police Union Leadership Forum organized by Harvard Law School. I had the forum organizer invite Chief Gascon to speak to the attendees. During that dinner, Chief Gascon, who was drinking heavily, began reminiscing on his time with the Los Angeles Police Department, including his involvement in the Ramparts Unit scandal. He made multiple statements that disparaged minorities. He became so loud and animated that an African-American patron approached Chief Gascon and asked him to restrain himself because his behavior was offending his family.
You can read the declaration for yourself:
Although Delagnes gave this declaration under oath, Gascon has never denied it under oath. His spokesman said, “What [Delagnes] lacks in credibility, he makes up for in imagination.” The San Francisco Chronicle followed up with Delagnes. He said that “If called as a witness by Gascon’s blue-ribbon panel, I will testify in more detail about those statements.” Unsurprisingly, Gascon’s panel does not appear to have called Delagnes as a witness. Martin O’Halloran, another former police officer, was also present and did not deny the allegations.
Although Gascon’s remarks have been overlooked during the tumultuous period that followed his election in Los Angeles, they raise many troubling questions, not the least about his hypocrisy. Can someone really lead a racial justice movement who is so open about his racial prejudices that he must be asked by a person of color to quiet down? If the allegations are false, why hasn’t Gascon, under oath, told the public what really happened? Is he claiming that the retired officer committed perjury, risking prosecution by Gascon’s office, just to get at him? These formal allegations seem to be serious enough on their own to require more from Gascon than a throw-away line by his spokesman.
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