Taking on gang crime has long been a top talking point for San Francisco District Attorney Kamela Harris in her current job, and in her bid to be California’s next attorney general. She got to talk it up in a bigger venue today with a speech at the White House.
At a “Conference on Gang Violence Prevention and Crime Control: Learning From Successful Partnerships Around the Country,” Harris spoke about work her office has done around truancy and its reentry program for low-level drug offenders, among other topics, a spokeswoman said.
High-profile gang cases being prosecuted now in San Francisco include that of Edwin Ramos, an alleged MS-13 street gang member who is accused of killing Anthony Bologna and two of Bologna’s sons while they drove on June 22, 2008. Prosecutors say the shooting was a mistaken retaliation for an earlier wounding of a gang member.
Harris’ invitation to the White House came late last week, her spokeswoman said, and other people with expertise in gang violence prevention were invited. California invitees to the conference reportedly were San Bernardino Mayor Pat Morris and Fresno Sheriff Margaret Mims.
Harris campaigned hard for Obama, but she won’t be seeing her friend at the White House today — he’s off on vacation, playing golf and tennis and hanging out on Martha’s Vineyard.
— Kate Moser
Kamela Harris talking about gang enforcement, a bit of a bitter joke to me. I am a criminal defense investigator who spent a year and a half fighting a homicide case brought by Kamela's office, an office that sought to make a case that was really self-defense into a gang case. Kamela's office spent hundreds of thousands of dollars prosecuting a case that should have never been charged. We went through two trials and all sorts of drama in between trials that cost the taxpayers hundreds of thousands more, and in the end Kamela's office was trying to send a guy to State prison for life because he defended himself against a notorious Norteno gangmember who was also a confidential informant for the San Francisco Police Department's Gang Task Force. This gang member was committing crimes in The Mission with impunity because he was being protected by Gang Task Force. Anytime Kamela would like to talk about gang enforcement, I'm available.
Posted by: Steve Vender | August 25, 2009 at 07:39 AM