Alameda County (California) District Attorney Pamela Price, whose reluctance to prosecute criminals is already known (see California Community Demands Justice for Murdered Toddler; Alameda County DA Pamela Price Calls It Racist and Alameda County DA Pamela Price Believes a Man’s Life Is Worth … Five Years, Tops) has decided against sentencing enhancements in the case of three suspected gang members. The three, in an apparent case of mistaken identity, allegedly opened fire April 8, 2023, on an innocent family’s car on a freeway in Fremont, California, a San Francisco Bay Area suburb. The shooting killed five-year-old Eliyanah Crisostomo. As noted by San Francisco Bay Area television reporter Dan Noyes:
2/2 Internal documents I obtained show that the defendants flashed gang signs at the family in their SUV and yelled "Fremont Trece", the name of their Sureno gang, before opening fire.
— Dan Noyes (@dannoyes) April 15, 2023
Pam Price did not allow gang or gun enhancements for accused killers of 5-year-old Eliyanah Crisostomo shot on 880 near Fremont Saturday. Attorneys in DA’s Office tell me they never heard back after making request to Price and her second in command.
Internal documents I obtained show that the defendants flashed gang signs at the family in their SUV and yelled “Fremont Trece”, the name of their Sureno gang, before opening fire.
This action, or inaction if you prefer, has taken place despite Price’s April 14 comments on the case:
“My heart goes out to Eliyanah’s family. There is no reason young children should die on our Bay Area freeways,” said DA Price. “This behavior is absolutely unacceptable. We will not stand for gun violence and these three defendants will be held accountable for their despicable actions.”
The Office will not be making any further comments in order not to compromise the case.
Further comments on the case, no. At least not directly. As is her wont, in place of speaking to the media, following her April 14 press release, Price made a YouTube video, this one discussing enhancements. Apparently, using YouTube to talk to your employees is the new norm.
I’ll spare you the torture of watching the video by offering the following transcript with commentary. You’re welcome.
Special Directive 23–10 directs our prosecutors to be smart on crime.
If we ignore it, it’ll go away! BRILLIANT!
California’s prison sentences are among the heaviest in the world, even without the added years of discretionary enhancements often used by district attorneys since the 1990s. Enhancements are add-ons to sentences that are used at the discretion of the district attorney. Overusing enhancements has led to Alameda County having the fifth-largest county jail in the world.
Define “overusing.” To Ms. Price, removing criminals from the streets as long as possible is counterproductive to restorative justice, which does not mean restoring property or life to crime victims.
There are over 100 enhancements, including 22 different special circumstances add-ons to any sentence. To be clear, we have not stopped using enhancements altogether. We are simply requiring our deputies to check with their supervisors before adding an enhancement to a regular charge.
Translation: yes, we have stopped using enhancements altogether.
One common enhancement is life without the possibility of parole. In 2022, the UCLA Center for the Study of Women published a study that shows that almost 71% of the people serving sentences of life without the possibility of parole from Alameda County are black, while we are less than 10% of the county’s population.
A couple of points here. One, maybe we look at the hard numbers of who is committing the crimes. Two … “we?” You identify with criminals, provided they share the same skin pigmentation as you? Really, Ms. Price?
In comparison, only 7% of the people from our county sentenced to life without the possibility of parole are white, even though whites are almost 40% of our population. Of those people sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in Alameda County under the age of 18, 82% are black. 72% of the people serving life without the possibility of parole from Alameda County were under the age of 26 at the time of their offense.
Can we ask the victims (or surviving family members) of these crimes if they feel sorry for a punk kid solely because they were a kid? Most of us were kids at one time. Not all of us had loving, stable, two-parent homes. Amazingly, most of us reached adulthood without murdering, raping, or robbing people.
Using enhancements has not stopped crime.
Neither has not prosecuting it, genius.
It has contributed to racial inequity and injustices,
See the above comment on hard data regarding who commits the crimes.
and it has siphoned public resources, making it fiscally impossible for us to invest in interventions addressing the root causes of harmful behavior.
If you only had more money, you could solve humanity’s fallen nature by preaching personal responsibility and respect for others? This, at the same time, while you tell minorities they’re off the hook for their actions because of what went down 150 years ago? Do tell.
I know the public has a lot of questions, and so did our deputies, so a set of frequently asked questions, questions and answers, are included with the directive, and they will be made public on our website.
We can hardly wait.
Our new normal in Alameda County
Is to plea-bargain down from three counts of first-degree murder to one no contest for voluntary manslaughter.
is to not charge enhancements that tack extra time onto base significant prison sentences unless there are extraordinary circumstances involving harm to vulnerable victims or extreme acts of violence.
So, a five-year-old girl isn’t vulnerable? Eh, she probably insisted that she was a girl, played with dolls, and all that. Obviously a transphobe.
This is the way forward.
The Mandalorian, you are not.
Please pray for the Crisostomo family. For that matter, pray for Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price. She needs it. Not that she’s aware of this.
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