On Monday, Nathan Hochman, a former federal prosecutor and newly elected district attorney of Los Angeles, stood next to officials from the F.B.I., the Justice Department and local law enforcement agencies to make clear that punishment would be swift for anyone taking advantage of the crisis as flames still engulfed the region, the New York Times reports. Promising to seek maximum sentences for anyone convicted, Hochman vowed that Los Angeles would rise again, as it did after the traumas of the 1990s — the Rodney King riots, the Northridge earthquake and other wildfires. And fighting crime would be an important part of the city’s comeback. “We’re going to show Los Angeles to the world, that we have the grit and resilience to again build ourselves better than we were,” said Hochman, whose office so far has charged a dozen people with either looting or arson. “To the extent these criminals want to get in our way, please, let today be one example of the united front they are going to face.”
Hochman assumed the office in December after defeating the incumbent, George Gascón. Gascón had been elected in 2020, in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis, and he pursued an agenda of seeking the lowest-possible sentences; reviewing old, lengthy sentences that in some cases allowed violent offenders to be released; and paying more attention to root causes of crime. Even before the wildfires and the fears of lawlessness that have grown in their wake, Hochman’s tough-on-crime approach matched a shifting public mood. California once led the nation in punitive measures, with policies like its three-strikes law and ready use of capital punishment, but in more recent times the mood had shifted to move toward rehabilitation. Prison populations had dropped. The pandemic's crime uptick changed that, with smash-and-grab robberies, increases in shoplifting and open-air drug use. Among the suspects arrested and charged with looting — nine people so far — Hochman said, was a man who had two previous serious felonies on his record and who had been charged with stealing nearly $200,000 worth of property from a home that had been evacuated. Under California’s three-strikes law, Hochman said, the man would be facing a life sentence.
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