August 27, 2024 • 31 mins
Woody chats with Nathan Hochman – candidate for LA District Attorney this November 5.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Show.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
All right, everybody, it's woody and something uncharacteristic. Don't ever
really do anything like this, just a little one off.
I'm here by my all, I'm not by myself. I
do have a guest, and we don't really talk a
lot about politics on the show, and we're not really
going to start doing that. However, there's one particular race
(00:24):
that I'm really interested in because I think it does
affect people's quality of life more than all I think
probably than anything else that maybe even on the ballot
if you live in Los Angeles this election season, and
that would be the District attorney race because dude Gascon,
as you know, we did the billboards.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I want to show billboards.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
It's a George another public nuisance that George Gascon won't
do anything about. I really don't like the job that
he's done so far, as it seems like a lot
of people in Los Angeles don't like that either. And
there is one person who has really stepped up and
who is taking him on and just kicking ass in
the polls at this point, and we're going to talk
to him more about it. My guest here is Nathan Hawkman,
(01:10):
and you are running to be the District Attorney of
Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yes, sir, well, thank you very much for having me on.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
You have no idea what a big deal this is,
so you're welcome. You know that was a joke, Nathan,
And what's your backgund You're a lawyer, a trade lawyer. Okay,
that's why there's no sense of humor there.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
I've got to work on that.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
I was kidding.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
But no, thank you for coming in, because I really, dude,
I am so far behind you on this. I mentioned
it here in the in the lead up, but just
the I think this has such an effect on quality
of life, more so than so many other positions.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Am I wrong on that?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
No, you're absolutely right. I mean, the president on the
ballot obviously important for November fifth Senature, but nothing will
affect people's immediate safety for them and their family than
the DA race.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, I mean, even in the presidential race. As long
as I've been an adult, I don't think my life
has significantly changed in any way under any of the presidents,
and we've had Democrats, Republicans, everything else. Life definitely seems
to be different, and especially on the local level, and
especially with something like the districtoint. You never really really
thought about it that much. I'm sure people were just
a certain level of incompetent, or maybe they were okay.
(02:20):
But like we have George Gascon who is just completely
terrible and sucks, and everybody's really noticed the quality of
life here in Los Angeles and so as directly as
like the price of the gross stry, that people directly
notice that stuff that affects people.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Right when the DA is doing his job, you probably
have no clue who the DA is.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Right, that's how you want it, right.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
The problem with George Gascon, he came in over three
years ago, and he designed to enact a social experiment
literally on his first day in office. Having never personally
prosecuted or defend it a criminal case in his whole life,
he goes ahead and comes into that office and issues
an email on day one hour wide and basically says,
no longer are juveniles people under eighteen going to be
(03:00):
prosecuted for stealing under nine hundred and fifty dollars. If
you go ahead and you use a gun in connection
with a crime, he's not going to prosecute that gun enhancement.
If you're part of a gang and you engage in
a violent crime. He's not prosecuting the gang enhancement.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
And the reason for that would be what to like,
if you're like, what would be the argument for that.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
The argument for that was that he said, look, there
are we have too many problems that have sort of
landed on the backs of people of color, and his
solutions to those problems was to basically de incarcerate the
entire population, you know, let violent and serious criminals go
before they serve their full sentences, not prosecute him to
(03:39):
the full extent of the law on the front end.
And he promised if he did that, safety would go up.
But it didn't make sense when he said it, because
if you move the lines in favor of criminals, if
you all of a sudden say you can steal just
under nine hundred certain head and nothing's going to happen
to you. They're not going to steal less, they're going
to steal more. Exactly what's happened with last three and
(04:02):
a half years.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
It hasn't exactly gotten me more on board with being
a little bit more i don't know, empathetic, sympathetic to
people who you know, maybe made a mistake or whatever.
And I know it's kind of what they were going for, like, oh,
these people under eighteen and under this amount of money.
And I never really thought like, okay, well, short of
a violent any kind of violent crime, forget, I don't
care if they send people to the electric chair for that.
(04:25):
I don't care. That part I don't care about. But
I was like, ah, some of these non violent crimes,
like you know, people who get caught stealing or whatever.
I'm not saying they should go to jail forever, but
like how things have turned. Like you said, if the
DA's doing their job, you'll never notice. But I gotta
tell you, man, I've completely changed my tune. And you
see every day there are videos online or on the
news people walking into the Nike outlet store or to
(04:46):
a Walgreens and just clearing the place out, no sense
of urgency, just big bags and just collecting everything. People
are even videotape and they don't care because nothing's going
to happen to.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Them, right.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
And I couldn't agree with you more.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
And it's so frustrating because it's like, well, if they're
not going to do anything about it, the stores can't
do anything about it. In fact, there's been like people
that say like, oh well, if you even try to, the
employee gets fired and the person who's just an average customer.
You see more and more people stepping up and the
way that's even more dangerous than if if someone's like
actually worried about going to jail.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Right, and you know, it starts small. The culture of
lawlessness starts with one guy going into a CBS, taking
about one hundred dollars, walking out, not even running out
because he knows he's not going.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
To be arrested, and goes that was easy. The next time,
it's two hundred bucks, right, and.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Then and then you have a seven to eleven where
one hundred people go in for a flash mob ransack
everything there. Then you get your smashing grab robbers. You
got the people breaking into cars, people breaking into homes.
Now you got the guy the actor in downtown LA
you know their jack and his catalac converter, and when
he confronts them, they shoot him dead. And so again
(05:52):
this is a culture of lawlessness, a spiral of lawlessness
that just keeps spilering up until someone does something about it.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
And that's interesting going d because you are you're you
are a law and order Democrat, which now there's there's
a there's a lot of like, uh, identity politics that
go on, and so the the the right gets labeled
as you know, everybody hates gay people and everybody's against
you know, a woman's right to choose. Democrats are always
labels like, oh, they don't care about the law, they
(06:19):
don't care about and just want to hand out things.
Everybody know, what he goes to jail. That's not necessarily
the case, you know, depend depending on what the conversations.
But I feel like I am most people where I
am really truly honestly in the middle based on whatever
I think is the best, most common sense idea. I'm
a common sense I feel thinker and how I look
at things.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
As am I And you know, I'm actually a registered
independent for this race because I want voters to understand
for this race. Oh yeah, well, in other words, I've
been a Democrat in my life, been a registered Republican
in my life, and now I'm a registered independent and
this race, interestingly is a nonpartisan race.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Was that just strategic that you did that?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Then?
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Why why if you were always at least strategic the
Democrat people to understand that that's how I'm going to
run the DA's office. I'm going to remove the George
Gascon politics, right that have decided there's sort of certain
crimes and certain criminals that will not be prosecuted. And
I'm going to go back to what the only two
things that matter, the facts and the law. And I
can do that in a non partisan race where your
(07:14):
party affiliation is not even on the ballot and tell
people I'm going to be an independent and that's exactly
how I'm going to run the DA's office. And what's
very interesting is that that is resonating across this entire county.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yeah, I see in the polls, like what do you
what are you currently at right now? You're up by
like what twenty twenty five point twenty five points?
Speaker 3 (07:31):
But I tell my team, I said, is that within
the margin event?
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Now I'm telling my team, I say, we have.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
To treat this as if we're down twenty five points.
Because in twenty twenty, what we saw happen is that
a huge amount of outside money came into the race. Yeah,
you know, we're talking seven and a half million dollars
came in to get George Gascon across the finish line
that could very well happen in this race. So we
are working incredibly hard every day to November fifth to
(07:57):
get the message out to voters. And thank you for
this opportunity to reach your listeners. Yeah, because this is
an incredibly important I just think the guy's got to go.
And I think you're a nice guy. And somebody told me,
whether that was a lie or not, that you're actually
a listener or have listened to the Woody Show before.
So anybody who's down with us, we're.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Down with you.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
So I appreciate that time.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
So I mean, I just you know, like the I
have never met one person and we have all kinds
of people around here at the radio station, everybody from
hardcore right to hardcore left. I have not met one
person who said that they voted for him. And then
there was that recall effort. How that didn't happen? I
don't know. So, like I'm not trying to be a
(08:38):
person who's like a conspiracy theory person here, but like
how did he not get recalled? Like as the opponent?
Do you think about that stuff? Like wonder if like
maybe he's got like I don't know, like he's got
some somebody like you said, this big money thing. Money
buys a lot of favor and different things to be
able to say, oh, well that signature does count. We're
(09:00):
going to throw this one out because this is you
know that the tea wasn't crossed, the eye wasn't dotted,
Like do you have people that look over that stuff?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Oh? Absolutely, At the recall, he never actually got to
the ballot because there wasn't enough valid signatures to get
into That's.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
What I'm saying, the valid signatures. I feel like, how
could you not have enough ballid signa for that particular dude.
I've not met one person, not one stinking person who
said they. I have asked that question on the air
a thousand times. Hey, anybody who voted for him, let
me know. I'd love to just hear that. Could be
somebody who just clearly down the ballots went you know, Democrat, Democrat, Demory,
right down the line, and didn't even think about who
(09:34):
their voting, know who they're voting for, or know his
history from San Francisco and all these different.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
And I think what happened back in Polosy twenty we
were living in some strange times. I mean This was
George Floyd summer that defund the police, the riots and
protests in the streets. You know, the mayor of l
a eric Or said, he switched his endorsement the last
second from Jackie Lacy to George Gascon. You know, people
believed in sort of his promises that he was to
(10:00):
get everything done. He's going to cure all the problems
in our prison system and our police system and our
prosecutions and make us more safe. It made absolutely no sense.
And where I come down is not to replace his
extreme decarceration policies with mass incarceration. Extreme policies don't work.
I come down in the middle. I call it the
(10:20):
hard middle, because you've got to do the work. Each
case is individual. Look at the defendant, the defendant's background,
the crime committed, the impact on the victim, to determine
who the true threats are to our public safety and
have to go to behind bars. And as you were
saying earlier, quite you know the ones that are first
time non violent offenders. These are the people that community service,
restitution pay it back if you stole it, or diversion
(10:42):
programs if you have a serious mental illness or a
drug addiction are the most appropriate.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, are just sending these people to Mississippi or something.
Let let them be somebody Else's Montana. That's a huge place.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
There's something.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
You ever fly from coast to coast and just patchworks
of nothing you don't see, Like people go, we're overcreded.
We have Look, there's plenty of place that we can
just send people and drop them off. They're creating a problem.
I heard something crazy. It was like eighty percent of
all the crimes are committed by and it was like
a small, very small percentage of people.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Seventy percent of crime seventy put about twenty percent of people.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Okay, so if we address that twenty percent, absolutely you
could reduce crime by seventy percent.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Well, if you go after those repeat offenders who are
just those are the ones that are still in every
single day, Yeah, or the Chilean gangs that go into
dozens of houses and you get the Chilean gang. You know,
that's how you reduce If you focus on the repeat offenders,
as I absolutely would, Yeah, you're going to immediately seriously
reduce crime in this county. And again George Gascon sends
(11:42):
a message to these people you're going to get arrested
in the morning and be out by the afternoon.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, what you're feeling on no cash bail? I thought
that was kind of crazy. I understand the idea behind it,
Like it's a system like if you're already like down
and out and you're you know whatever, you'll end up
just staying in jail until you're here or before you
go to the court. But isn't there a happy medium somewhere?
Like what's your position on that?
Speaker 1 (12:06):
And that's exactly right. I espouse the happy medium. In
other words, what you should be looking at for a
bail decision is whether or not that person's going to reoffend.
You know, if they have a bad track record and
they've got arrested and convicted before, chances are they might reoffend.
You're going to need a higher bail. If there are
someone who never showed up to a court appearance ever before,
(12:26):
you're going to need a higher bail. But if they're
a first time non violent defender and they're going to
lose their job and their family is going to suffer
if they get a high bail, that's where you should
go off the cash bail schedule and figure out the
right bail for that person. So that whole notion of
individualizing these assessments I couldn't agree with more.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Is that realistic though, or is that just something that
the system's not equipped, Like you don't have the people
or the resources or whatever to be able to like individually.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Oh no, you actually have those resources. You have to
bring a judge earlier in the process, because what they
were doing before is they literally had a cash bail
schedule and you look at the grid and you'd say,
what crime did he commit? That translates to fifty thousand
dollars bail.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Other like those old tip charts that everybody's to carry
around to go to restaurants with. I see how much
your bill was, and you go like, oh, I want
to give ten, fifteen, to twenty whatever percent, just trace
it down and go out here. Because people can't figure
out tips exactly. And that's what used to be the
cash bail schedule. And when that wasn't working for the
reasons you said earlier, they just threw the whole thing
out and they said, Okay, everybody gets out. We're effectively
(13:29):
going to have a zero bail schedule. I come down
with again, get those judges early in the process, have
them do that proper risk analysis, who's actually the bad
guys and who's not going to show up for court.
They get the higher bail and everybody else will get
the lower bail. That's sort of the common sense way
of approaching the bail question as well. So pardon my
(13:49):
ignorance here because I don't know exactly how the system works.
But as the DA, how much control do you really
have over that? Like, so, what's the process if you
wanted to institute that as the DA? Like, how do
you go about making that the new rule? So what
you would do is you would go into the courts.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
You have to work with the court system because ultimately
a judge makes the final call on bail. And you
tell the judge here's exactly what the DA's position is
right now. Gascon's position is let them all out, zero
cash bail. I would tell the judges, look, we need
to work on this risk based analysis system. We need
you to do your jobs as judges. We'll do our
jobs as prosecutors. We'll get you the information to make
(14:26):
smart decisions, and we'll do that across the entire board
of Criminal Justice. Decisions the DA does his job, and
all of a sudden, criminals will understand where the lines
are again. And my goal is not to fill the
prisons to the breaking point. That's actually the failure of
the criminal judge.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Fill to the brim with the twenty percent that we're
talking about exactly, and who cares?
Speaker 1 (14:46):
And I need to deter people. I need to actually
say we're back in business. The lines are real, the
consequences are real. So don't commit the crime. Y.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
The cops got to love that, right, Like, what's your
relationship like with the with the police?
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (14:58):
I say. In the summer twenty twenty, during the defund
the police movement, my brother and I set up the
La Sheriff's Foundation. We've actually raised them over a million
dollars to actually get them stuff that they needed. They're
are rescue, needed a drone. They actually rescue people. They've
we got them a drone. They've rescued three people who
otherwise would be dead. You know, we when those officers
run that training run, if you remember, seventy six officers
(15:21):
got mowed down by a car. We went to the hospitals,
dealt with the families. It was Christmas time. We gave
them some financial gifts. But what they loved is that
someone from the you know, from the public showed up
to say, we support you. So I absolutely support the
officers that when the bullets are flying in the building,
they're running into the building to keep us safe and
(15:41):
have no tolerance like officers don't that if someone does
cross the line. I have personally prosecuted officers when I
was a process.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
I'm going to ask about the bad cops because like,
that's another one that gets labeled as journal or nothing.
I'm very pro law enforcement in my family, and I
get it there are there are bad cops. Of course,
I don't take up for them, right, But I'm not
sitting here saying that all cops suck. You know, I
don't think that's that's a fair assessment either. But when
they do, like I said, they do cross the line,
(16:08):
then they are treated like any other criminal.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Correct. Well, you know it's funny law enforcement officers tell
me that no one hates a bad cop more than
a good cop.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yeah, because it makes everybody hate them absolutely. And so again,
I like lawyers, right, I went, I worked through that code,
that sort of code of blue and built cases to
actually go.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
After officers that cross the line. Yeah, but I'm also
going to be a partner to the overwhelming number of
officers who are doing an incredibly dangerous job really well
every single day.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I gotta figure, like, you know, like teachers and cops,
I don't know who would want to be either one
right now. It seems like both those jobs would really suck.
You're up against all these things. But with the cops,
you know, like if somebody you know thinks that you're
a bad cop, you're out there risking your life, right
and they just automatically think that you are an a
hole because you're a cop.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
You know, this is why LAPD is down over a
thousand officers, the departments down over a thousand deputies, because
who would want to work right now in Los Angeles County.
It's a dangerous job, it's expensive to live here, the
public doesn't really have your back very often, And all
of a sudden, the DA says to you, if you
bring us a case, we might not actually go with
(17:16):
that case because it doesn't accord with my political agenda,
according to George Gascon, and I'm more interested George Gascon
is in prosecuting law enforcement officers than partnering with them,
who'd want to come here?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I don't want to jink you, man, but like, I
just don't see how you lose this without there being
some kind of shady aspect to it. But I'm not
taking up or believing in that either. I'm just saying, like,
I think it's so obvious that something else needs to
happen to think so so many people are just fed
up with how things are going, and how things are operating,
(17:48):
and how business owners. You had to talk to a
lot of business owners as you're out there campaigning, you.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Know, I would talk to seven eleven franchisees owners rule
They are so upset and angry because a seven to
eleven franchise it used to be something that people they
invested their life savings to own and used to be
really profitable. Now they can't even sell them. One guy
gave me an example of what happened recently where this
guy was walking out of a seven eleven with two
(18:15):
six packs of beer and the guy that swordener says, Okay,
that's ten dollars, and the guy looks at him and
flips him a five. He says, no, it's ten dollars
and the guy says, you know what, you should be lucky.
I'm giving you five dollars. I mean, that's the culture
we live in. People actually think you can steal it
without any consequence happening, and if they pay even a
little for it, they're doing the store owner of a favor,
(18:37):
which again is a non sustainable life that we're going
to have here, because eventually what's going to happen is
that stores will close, people will start moving out, Businesses
will not expand here. They will actually shut down as
we've seen, and we'll see a spiral of lawlessness that
just keeps growing every single year. And I'm telling you, though,
that as fast as it grew over the last three
(18:58):
and a half years, we can stick it. On day one,
I was going to ask you the power of the DA.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
So you have big plans.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
We all have these big goals things that we want
to do in our in our lives, like, yeah, I'd
love to lose fifty pounds, but I know I'm not
going to wake up tomorrow and be fifty pounds later.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
With all these things that you want to do, these.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Ideas that you have, and knowing the ins and outs
of the job, how much do you think you can
get done? And let's just say that, like, how does
life change in the first year of you being the DA.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Well, I would immediately get the key stakeholders back on board.
So right now, the seven hundred and fifty deputy district
attorneys who work for Gascon, they voted ninety eight percent
to support his recall I've met with now, is that
really ninety eight percent of his own staff of his
own staff, Wow, actually thought he's doing such a bad
job that he should be fired or resigned. I say
(19:48):
that about management around here. Yeah, I'm telling you it's
a shocking statistic. And I've spoken now, I've got their endorsement.
I've spoken now to over three hundred of them before
this election is even over, and I basically said, look,
you're the greatest asset of the DA's office. It's not
the cases of the courtrooms, it's the people. Yeah, And
my job is as the DA is to maximize the
(20:09):
greatest asset, which is you, folks. And I'm going to
get them the resources. I'm going to get them the training.
I'm going to give them.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
You can success that they deserve because of the DA.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
You can just do that or that is that stuff
a fight and take time to actually get those resources.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
I know what it's like around here.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
If I need new toner for the copy that's right
outside of the studio, I got to send a thing
to It's a ticket that goes to some department. They
got to see it, they got to sign somebody like.
That's why I'm saying, like how quickly. Of course things
can be done, right, but that's something you can do.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
DA's offices is down two hundred lawyers right now, but
they're funded for those two hundred lawyers. So I'll send
the word out to the community that we're back in business.
The DA's office is no longer going to be the
butt of late night jokes.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
So it's all the money, it's already there, it's already allocated.
The positions are already created. They just need filled absolutely.
So Okay, nobody.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Wants to work right now for George Gascon's in the county, No,
but they will want to work for Nathan Hawkman's DA's
office here in La County because I respect the people
who actually would be working for me and make that
the focal point of my job, as well as being
partners with law enforcement I mean the champions of victims.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
How quickly do you think it is felt by people
like me and just other regular citizens, business owners.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
I think you're going to see me on TV often
basically touting successes as we start to lower the crime rate,
because I'm going to take my message most importantly to criminals.
You know, in the recent poll, five percent of people
think that George Gascon's doing a good job. I'm convinced
all five percent must be the criminal.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
I was gonna say, where are these five percent? Again?
Speaker 2 (21:43):
I cannot find one person day that I can't find
one person to tell me that they voted for this guy,
even to the.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
People who did vote for him back in twenty twenty. Now,
if you looked at it and said, you know what,
we made a mistake. Yeah, we gave him three and
a half years to prove his social experiment was going
to work. Its failed, and now we're looking forward to change.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
I'm much rad to be talking about you and what
you can do. I did have one question. I didn't
know if this was true or not. Somebody had said
to me that the reason he is so much against
incarcerations because his parents were incarcerated. Do you know if
that's true or not. No, that was actually the DA
in San Francisco. Oh okay, somebody had told me that.
I'm like, oh, I can maybe understand, like why you'd
(22:24):
be a little bit more sensitive. So there's really no
reason to be understanding of it at all.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
None.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
He used to be an LAPD officer. He was the
chief of police of the Mesa Police Department in San
Francisco Police Department, and then became the DA having never
personally prosecuted a case in his whole life, which is
just shocking. Yeah, so what, Jane, I'm going to take
thirty four years experience, by the way, ten of it's
a prosecutor, but twenty four of it's been on the
defense side. So I'm going to bring a three sixty
(22:50):
view to the role of DA in a way that
no DA in history has ever been able to do.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Yeah, Like, what, what's your background? It's a lawyer.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
You become up here in La lifelong you know, married
thirty one years, raised three kids here, Brown University, Stanford
Law School, went right to the US Attorney's office seven
years a federal prosecutor, did the narcotics cases, the gang cases,
the money laundering cases.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Are you're worried, like people making threats towards you or
I've had strong arm you like, I mean, do you
ever worry, like look over your do you find yourself
looking over your shoulder?
Speaker 3 (23:24):
I'd be sad. I'd be kind of worried. I mean
i'd be scared.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
I put some some bad people behind bars when I
was a prosecutor, and yeah, you're always concerned, but it
doesn't stop you from doing the job.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
No, it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
But I mean, like as as anybody ever tried, you know,
confronting you or taking a swing at you or or.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Swing Now, I've received some pretty nasty letters. Yeah, emails, texts,
the whole works. Yeah, I'm freaking violent. I mean, people
get people to text the show and they're they're douchebags.
But it's about some silly radio show. This is like
real life, hardcore violent criminals like that. I would be
I'd be freaked out about that. I totally believe in
(24:01):
the mission of justice, to be quite honest, and just
as I said before, you know, if someone's a true
threat to public safety, I'm going to do my best
to put them behind bars. And if they're not, I'm
going to see if we can work with them, you know,
get them through the system, have their pay their debts
to society, and something like community service or restitution or
a diversion program. Give them that chance, and hopefully we'll
(24:21):
never see them back in the criminal justice system. But
they the criminals, you know, the ones, those repeat offenders
we've been talking about. We'll understand there's a new day
and age if I become DA where we're actually going
to have real consequences for their actions.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Yeah, so you're defense attorney federal prosecutor.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Right and then, and I actually was an assistant Attorney General.
I got a presidential nomination, a unanimous US Senate confirmation
to run the Department. Department of Justice is Tax division
back in d C. Had a one hundred million dollars budget,
three hundred and fifty lawyers doing cases all over the
United States. You know, it's find My wife who had
the three little kids back in LA at the time,
(24:58):
she said, that's a guy in his fur, he's going
to fantasy job camp. You know, it actually was. It
was pre damn cool, you know. And you know, when
you get to wear the white hat and you get
to actually have justice as your client, it's a great
it's a great experience because if you're in the middle
of the case and you all of a sudden see
that case fall down, you have the right and the
(25:19):
obligation to say, we're done. I'm going to dismiss the case.
That's true justice, just as much as it is convicting
someone is letting someone who the evidence is not proved
beyond a reasonable doubt, that person should be let off.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Somebody was telling me that George gascon will really only
do something about it, but really only quote do his
job when it does reach a certain level of publicity.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Absolutely, Like once the public gets that, gets a hang
of it. Like, I forget what the one was here.
Most recently there was something, but it was a big case.
Maybe it was the actor. Yeah, it was the actor case.
And that's just Johnny Wactor.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Is that his name?
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah, sorry, Johnny Whacter. Yeah, you know he's the one.
At three am it was coming back to his car.
Three guys were jacking the CATIALC converter. Yeah, he just
confronted him, not violently, like what's up, guys, and they shot.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Now had not been a guy who had a profile
in any way, shape or form, just an average dude,
and it didn't get all the policity that it got.
Would anything have been done by that, My guess is no,
you would know more than I would.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Well, let's just say based on.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
The record that when it came time to the final
charges one the guy who actually is allegedly shot Johnny Wacter,
he's getting the literally the book thrown at him life
without the possibility of parole. I know many many cases
often that involved not no media attention. They often involve
people of color who've shot other people of color. And
(26:42):
because those cases aren't there, these defendants don't get the
book thrown at him. They're not getting life without the
possibility of parole. Charges, they get the much lower gascon charges.
Because he doesn't believe in basically sending the message to
criminals that if you engage in these acts, the full
extent of the law is going to be thrown against you.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Well, I mean you definitely, you definitely have my vote.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
It just something needs to happen, some change needs to
happen when it comes to all this. And I again
I think people understand. I think that's why you see
the polls the way that they are right now up
as much as you are. And uh, hey man, I
wish you good luck and you know anything else that
you want to you want to tell everybody while we
got you. Yeah, I mean, did I miss something like
(27:27):
what's your favorite football team? Or like what's the best
place in town to eat? Like something good?
Speaker 1 (27:32):
So football team? You know, A lifelong Rams fan, Okay,
even when they moved to Saint Louis, I never gave
up on them. I knew they were coming back. So
I'm going to Rams, all right. Probably Lakers over Clippers
at this point. D your fan forever.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
You can eat only one play, like your your last meal.
Last meal restaurant where you're going doesn't have to be fancy,
but one place a steak. It's a big steak, yeah,
from it's in town.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
I mean, you gotta. It's probably a combination stake. Forty
eight is probably the new contender right now. Mastros was
a mess fighting true back in the old old days.
It was Laurie's prime Rib. If you remember that.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Oh yeah, I've been there at the old school place
for the carts and the yeah, oh yeah, the cars
to bring the entire USC football team there.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Oh and they literally eat the place out. Yeah, because
they bring the cameras afterwards to show more prime rib
being eaten than probably any place on Earth. Yep, yeah, No,
it's a LA is an amazing place. I'm not gonna leave.
Part of the reason I'm running for das I refuse
to have a guy come in from San Francisco destroyed
the public safety there, come to La, destroy our public
(28:38):
safety and get you, me or any of your listeners
to leave. I'm staying here and we're just going to
get him gone.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
What do you need everybody to do? What are you
asking your websites vote for you? But like, what can
what can? What else can people do?
Speaker 1 (28:49):
So what people can do is go on the website
is probably the best portal. It's my name, Nathan Hawkman
hoc h m ai t the.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Girl that was on on the all of the internet.
You didn't see that.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
I did not see that. Ah, dude, I want you
under oath. I need you under oath. Nathan, I must
have been think you might have seen it. It took over
the internet. Look it up when you leave here.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Absolutely well, all right, people go on there on there
on the website if they want Hawk donate you can
certainly donate up to fifteen hundred dollars, but I've got
donations from five dollars to fifteen hundred and it gets
us the media time.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Actually, then go out and get the message out there.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
And you've got the money, You've got the money to
fight or whoever comes in trajectory.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Yeah, people want a lawn sign. You can sign up
and get a lawn sign. We'll have it delivered to you.
And just social media. Just make sure that people actually
know who to vote, to vote, and then who to
vote for.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
Nathan Hawkman.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
H o k h h O h o h.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
You'll when you see it Hawkman. Just remember Hawkman, right.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
And because again, the only person I fear at this point,
and you we talked about that, you know, you hope
that this goes well. The person I fear is the
uninformed voter. Okay, people somehow don't get your message, don't
listen to the show today and hear from me, and
they get to the ballot and they literally it's a
coin flip between me and Gascon because if they get
any information about how bad he is and what I
(30:17):
can do to change things, I feel like knows that
ten out of ten times.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
That's what I mean.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
I feel like so many people know the door the
gas gon like they'll go, oh, that's not good.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Yeah, Like there's an association there.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah, if you want to remember it, just say divide
the word gas and then cons. She's been running a
con on us for the last three and a half years.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Yeah, and everybody's gassed out. Yep, I'm ask one. All right, Well, Nathan,
thank you so much, Nathan Hawkman. Everybody running for district attorney,
super important race. This will affect your quality of life,
and I appreciate you taking some time.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Man, Oh you think kidding? This has been an honor.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Like I said, I never I never do this, but
I really wanted to talk to you because I really
wanted to kind of get the behind the scenes of
how exactly you could hear about Like, oh, that's an
important job, but what can you do. You can make
a promise, but what are you really able to do?
What's realistic? And so I think you've got a good plan.
Get a lot of books, man, start throwing them at
these guys.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Absolutely
Show.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
All right, everybody, it's woody and something uncharacteristic. Don't ever
really do anything like this, just a little one off.
I'm here by my all, I'm not by myself. I
do have a guest, and we don't really talk a
lot about politics on the show, and we're not really
going to start doing that. However, there's one particular race
(00:24):
that I'm really interested in because I think it does
affect people's quality of life more than all I think
probably than anything else that maybe even on the ballot
if you live in Los Angeles this election season, and
that would be the District attorney race because dude Gascon,
as you know, we did the billboards.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I want to show billboards.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
It's a George another public nuisance that George Gascon won't
do anything about. I really don't like the job that
he's done so far, as it seems like a lot
of people in Los Angeles don't like that either. And
there is one person who has really stepped up and
who is taking him on and just kicking ass in
the polls at this point, and we're going to talk
to him more about it. My guest here is Nathan Hawkman,
(01:10):
and you are running to be the District Attorney of
Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yes, sir, well, thank you very much for having me on.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
You have no idea what a big deal this is,
so you're welcome. You know that was a joke, Nathan,
And what's your backgund You're a lawyer, a trade lawyer. Okay,
that's why there's no sense of humor there.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
I've got to work on that.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
I was kidding.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
But no, thank you for coming in, because I really, dude,
I am so far behind you on this. I mentioned
it here in the in the lead up, but just
the I think this has such an effect on quality
of life, more so than so many other positions.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Am I wrong on that?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
No, you're absolutely right. I mean, the president on the
ballot obviously important for November fifth Senature, but nothing will
affect people's immediate safety for them and their family than
the DA race.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, I mean, even in the presidential race. As long
as I've been an adult, I don't think my life
has significantly changed in any way under any of the presidents,
and we've had Democrats, Republicans, everything else. Life definitely seems
to be different, and especially on the local level, and
especially with something like the districtoint. You never really really
thought about it that much. I'm sure people were just
a certain level of incompetent, or maybe they were okay.
(02:20):
But like we have George Gascon who is just completely
terrible and sucks, and everybody's really noticed the quality of
life here in Los Angeles and so as directly as
like the price of the gross stry, that people directly
notice that stuff that affects people.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Right when the DA is doing his job, you probably
have no clue who the DA is.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Right, that's how you want it, right.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
The problem with George Gascon, he came in over three
years ago, and he designed to enact a social experiment
literally on his first day in office. Having never personally
prosecuted or defend it a criminal case in his whole life,
he goes ahead and comes into that office and issues
an email on day one hour wide and basically says,
no longer are juveniles people under eighteen going to be
(03:00):
prosecuted for stealing under nine hundred and fifty dollars. If
you go ahead and you use a gun in connection
with a crime, he's not going to prosecute that gun enhancement.
If you're part of a gang and you engage in
a violent crime. He's not prosecuting the gang enhancement.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
And the reason for that would be what to like,
if you're like, what would be the argument for that.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
The argument for that was that he said, look, there
are we have too many problems that have sort of
landed on the backs of people of color, and his
solutions to those problems was to basically de incarcerate the
entire population, you know, let violent and serious criminals go
before they serve their full sentences, not prosecute him to
(03:39):
the full extent of the law on the front end.
And he promised if he did that, safety would go up.
But it didn't make sense when he said it, because
if you move the lines in favor of criminals, if
you all of a sudden say you can steal just
under nine hundred certain head and nothing's going to happen
to you. They're not going to steal less, they're going
to steal more. Exactly what's happened with last three and
(04:02):
a half years.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
It hasn't exactly gotten me more on board with being
a little bit more i don't know, empathetic, sympathetic to
people who you know, maybe made a mistake or whatever.
And I know it's kind of what they were going for, like, oh,
these people under eighteen and under this amount of money.
And I never really thought like, okay, well, short of
a violent any kind of violent crime, forget, I don't
care if they send people to the electric chair for that.
(04:25):
I don't care. That part I don't care about. But
I was like, ah, some of these non violent crimes,
like you know, people who get caught stealing or whatever.
I'm not saying they should go to jail forever, but
like how things have turned. Like you said, if the
DA's doing their job, you'll never notice. But I gotta
tell you, man, I've completely changed my tune. And you
see every day there are videos online or on the
news people walking into the Nike outlet store or to
(04:46):
a Walgreens and just clearing the place out, no sense
of urgency, just big bags and just collecting everything. People
are even videotape and they don't care because nothing's going
to happen to.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Them, right.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
And I couldn't agree with you more.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
And it's so frustrating because it's like, well, if they're
not going to do anything about it, the stores can't
do anything about it. In fact, there's been like people
that say like, oh well, if you even try to, the
employee gets fired and the person who's just an average customer.
You see more and more people stepping up and the
way that's even more dangerous than if if someone's like
actually worried about going to jail.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Right, and you know, it starts small. The culture of
lawlessness starts with one guy going into a CBS, taking
about one hundred dollars, walking out, not even running out
because he knows he's not going.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
To be arrested, and goes that was easy. The next time,
it's two hundred bucks, right, and.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Then and then you have a seven to eleven where
one hundred people go in for a flash mob ransack
everything there. Then you get your smashing grab robbers. You
got the people breaking into cars, people breaking into homes.
Now you got the guy the actor in downtown LA
you know their jack and his catalac converter, and when
he confronts them, they shoot him dead. And so again
(05:52):
this is a culture of lawlessness, a spiral of lawlessness
that just keeps spilering up until someone does something about it.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
And that's interesting going d because you are you're you
are a law and order Democrat, which now there's there's
a there's a lot of like, uh, identity politics that
go on, and so the the the right gets labeled
as you know, everybody hates gay people and everybody's against
you know, a woman's right to choose. Democrats are always
labels like, oh, they don't care about the law, they
(06:19):
don't care about and just want to hand out things.
Everybody know, what he goes to jail. That's not necessarily
the case, you know, depend depending on what the conversations.
But I feel like I am most people where I
am really truly honestly in the middle based on whatever
I think is the best, most common sense idea. I'm
a common sense I feel thinker and how I look
at things.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
As am I And you know, I'm actually a registered
independent for this race because I want voters to understand
for this race. Oh yeah, well, in other words, I've
been a Democrat in my life, been a registered Republican
in my life, and now I'm a registered independent and
this race, interestingly is a nonpartisan race.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Was that just strategic that you did that?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Then?
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Why why if you were always at least strategic the
Democrat people to understand that that's how I'm going to
run the DA's office. I'm going to remove the George
Gascon politics, right that have decided there's sort of certain
crimes and certain criminals that will not be prosecuted. And
I'm going to go back to what the only two
things that matter, the facts and the law. And I
can do that in a non partisan race where your
(07:14):
party affiliation is not even on the ballot and tell
people I'm going to be an independent and that's exactly
how I'm going to run the DA's office. And what's
very interesting is that that is resonating across this entire county.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yeah, I see in the polls, like what do you
what are you currently at right now? You're up by
like what twenty twenty five point twenty five points?
Speaker 3 (07:31):
But I tell my team, I said, is that within
the margin event?
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Now I'm telling my team, I say, we have.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
To treat this as if we're down twenty five points.
Because in twenty twenty, what we saw happen is that
a huge amount of outside money came into the race. Yeah,
you know, we're talking seven and a half million dollars
came in to get George Gascon across the finish line
that could very well happen in this race. So we
are working incredibly hard every day to November fifth to
(07:57):
get the message out to voters. And thank you for
this opportunity to reach your listeners. Yeah, because this is
an incredibly important I just think the guy's got to go.
And I think you're a nice guy. And somebody told me,
whether that was a lie or not, that you're actually
a listener or have listened to the Woody Show before.
So anybody who's down with us, we're.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Down with you.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
So I appreciate that time.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
So I mean, I just you know, like the I
have never met one person and we have all kinds
of people around here at the radio station, everybody from
hardcore right to hardcore left. I have not met one
person who said that they voted for him. And then
there was that recall effort. How that didn't happen? I
don't know. So, like I'm not trying to be a
(08:38):
person who's like a conspiracy theory person here, but like
how did he not get recalled? Like as the opponent?
Do you think about that stuff? Like wonder if like
maybe he's got like I don't know, like he's got
some somebody like you said, this big money thing. Money
buys a lot of favor and different things to be
able to say, oh, well that signature does count. We're
(09:00):
going to throw this one out because this is you
know that the tea wasn't crossed, the eye wasn't dotted,
Like do you have people that look over that stuff?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Oh? Absolutely, At the recall, he never actually got to
the ballot because there wasn't enough valid signatures to get
into That's.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
What I'm saying, the valid signatures. I feel like, how
could you not have enough ballid signa for that particular dude.
I've not met one person, not one stinking person who
said they. I have asked that question on the air
a thousand times. Hey, anybody who voted for him, let
me know. I'd love to just hear that. Could be
somebody who just clearly down the ballots went you know, Democrat, Democrat, Demory,
right down the line, and didn't even think about who
(09:34):
their voting, know who they're voting for, or know his
history from San Francisco and all these different.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
And I think what happened back in Polosy twenty we
were living in some strange times. I mean This was
George Floyd summer that defund the police, the riots and
protests in the streets. You know, the mayor of l
a eric Or said, he switched his endorsement the last
second from Jackie Lacy to George Gascon. You know, people
believed in sort of his promises that he was to
(10:00):
get everything done. He's going to cure all the problems
in our prison system and our police system and our
prosecutions and make us more safe. It made absolutely no sense.
And where I come down is not to replace his
extreme decarceration policies with mass incarceration. Extreme policies don't work.
I come down in the middle. I call it the
(10:20):
hard middle, because you've got to do the work. Each
case is individual. Look at the defendant, the defendant's background,
the crime committed, the impact on the victim, to determine
who the true threats are to our public safety and
have to go to behind bars. And as you were
saying earlier, quite you know the ones that are first
time non violent offenders. These are the people that community service,
restitution pay it back if you stole it, or diversion
(10:42):
programs if you have a serious mental illness or a
drug addiction are the most appropriate.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, are just sending these people to Mississippi or something.
Let let them be somebody Else's Montana. That's a huge place.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
There's something.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
You ever fly from coast to coast and just patchworks
of nothing you don't see, Like people go, we're overcreded.
We have Look, there's plenty of place that we can
just send people and drop them off. They're creating a problem.
I heard something crazy. It was like eighty percent of
all the crimes are committed by and it was like
a small, very small percentage of people.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Seventy percent of crime seventy put about twenty percent of people.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Okay, so if we address that twenty percent, absolutely you
could reduce crime by seventy percent.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Well, if you go after those repeat offenders who are
just those are the ones that are still in every
single day, Yeah, or the Chilean gangs that go into
dozens of houses and you get the Chilean gang. You know,
that's how you reduce If you focus on the repeat offenders,
as I absolutely would, Yeah, you're going to immediately seriously
reduce crime in this county. And again George Gascon sends
(11:42):
a message to these people you're going to get arrested
in the morning and be out by the afternoon.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, what you're feeling on no cash bail? I thought
that was kind of crazy. I understand the idea behind it,
Like it's a system like if you're already like down
and out and you're you know whatever, you'll end up
just staying in jail until you're here or before you
go to the court. But isn't there a happy medium somewhere?
Like what's your position on that?
Speaker 1 (12:06):
And that's exactly right. I espouse the happy medium. In
other words, what you should be looking at for a
bail decision is whether or not that person's going to reoffend.
You know, if they have a bad track record and
they've got arrested and convicted before, chances are they might reoffend.
You're going to need a higher bail. If there are
someone who never showed up to a court appearance ever before,
(12:26):
you're going to need a higher bail. But if they're
a first time non violent defender and they're going to
lose their job and their family is going to suffer
if they get a high bail, that's where you should
go off the cash bail schedule and figure out the
right bail for that person. So that whole notion of
individualizing these assessments I couldn't agree with more.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Is that realistic though, or is that just something that
the system's not equipped, Like you don't have the people
or the resources or whatever to be able to like individually.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Oh no, you actually have those resources. You have to
bring a judge earlier in the process, because what they
were doing before is they literally had a cash bail
schedule and you look at the grid and you'd say,
what crime did he commit? That translates to fifty thousand
dollars bail.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Other like those old tip charts that everybody's to carry
around to go to restaurants with. I see how much
your bill was, and you go like, oh, I want
to give ten, fifteen, to twenty whatever percent, just trace
it down and go out here. Because people can't figure
out tips exactly. And that's what used to be the
cash bail schedule. And when that wasn't working for the
reasons you said earlier, they just threw the whole thing
out and they said, Okay, everybody gets out. We're effectively
(13:29):
going to have a zero bail schedule. I come down
with again, get those judges early in the process, have
them do that proper risk analysis, who's actually the bad
guys and who's not going to show up for court.
They get the higher bail and everybody else will get
the lower bail. That's sort of the common sense way
of approaching the bail question as well. So pardon my
(13:49):
ignorance here because I don't know exactly how the system works.
But as the DA, how much control do you really
have over that? Like, so, what's the process if you
wanted to institute that as the DA? Like, how do
you go about making that the new rule? So what
you would do is you would go into the courts.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
You have to work with the court system because ultimately
a judge makes the final call on bail. And you
tell the judge here's exactly what the DA's position is
right now. Gascon's position is let them all out, zero
cash bail. I would tell the judges, look, we need
to work on this risk based analysis system. We need
you to do your jobs as judges. We'll do our
jobs as prosecutors. We'll get you the information to make
(14:26):
smart decisions, and we'll do that across the entire board
of Criminal Justice. Decisions the DA does his job, and
all of a sudden, criminals will understand where the lines
are again. And my goal is not to fill the
prisons to the breaking point. That's actually the failure of
the criminal judge.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Fill to the brim with the twenty percent that we're
talking about exactly, and who cares?
Speaker 1 (14:46):
And I need to deter people. I need to actually
say we're back in business. The lines are real, the
consequences are real. So don't commit the crime. Y.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
The cops got to love that, right, Like, what's your
relationship like with the with the police?
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (14:58):
I say. In the summer twenty twenty, during the defund
the police movement, my brother and I set up the
La Sheriff's Foundation. We've actually raised them over a million
dollars to actually get them stuff that they needed. They're
are rescue, needed a drone. They actually rescue people. They've
we got them a drone. They've rescued three people who
otherwise would be dead. You know, we when those officers
run that training run, if you remember, seventy six officers
(15:21):
got mowed down by a car. We went to the hospitals,
dealt with the families. It was Christmas time. We gave
them some financial gifts. But what they loved is that
someone from the you know, from the public showed up
to say, we support you. So I absolutely support the
officers that when the bullets are flying in the building,
they're running into the building to keep us safe and
(15:41):
have no tolerance like officers don't that if someone does
cross the line. I have personally prosecuted officers when I
was a process.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
I'm going to ask about the bad cops because like,
that's another one that gets labeled as journal or nothing.
I'm very pro law enforcement in my family, and I
get it there are there are bad cops. Of course,
I don't take up for them, right, But I'm not
sitting here saying that all cops suck. You know, I
don't think that's that's a fair assessment either. But when
they do, like I said, they do cross the line,
(16:08):
then they are treated like any other criminal.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Correct. Well, you know it's funny law enforcement officers tell
me that no one hates a bad cop more than
a good cop.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yeah, because it makes everybody hate them absolutely. And so again,
I like lawyers, right, I went, I worked through that code,
that sort of code of blue and built cases to
actually go.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
After officers that cross the line. Yeah, but I'm also
going to be a partner to the overwhelming number of
officers who are doing an incredibly dangerous job really well
every single day.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I gotta figure, like, you know, like teachers and cops,
I don't know who would want to be either one
right now. It seems like both those jobs would really suck.
You're up against all these things. But with the cops,
you know, like if somebody you know thinks that you're
a bad cop, you're out there risking your life, right
and they just automatically think that you are an a
hole because you're a cop.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
You know, this is why LAPD is down over a
thousand officers, the departments down over a thousand deputies, because
who would want to work right now in Los Angeles County.
It's a dangerous job, it's expensive to live here, the
public doesn't really have your back very often, And all
of a sudden, the DA says to you, if you
bring us a case, we might not actually go with
(17:16):
that case because it doesn't accord with my political agenda,
according to George Gascon, and I'm more interested George Gascon
is in prosecuting law enforcement officers than partnering with them,
who'd want to come here?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I don't want to jink you, man, but like, I
just don't see how you lose this without there being
some kind of shady aspect to it. But I'm not
taking up or believing in that either. I'm just saying, like,
I think it's so obvious that something else needs to
happen to think so so many people are just fed
up with how things are going, and how things are operating,
(17:48):
and how business owners. You had to talk to a
lot of business owners as you're out there campaigning, you.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Know, I would talk to seven eleven franchisees owners rule
They are so upset and angry because a seven to
eleven franchise it used to be something that people they
invested their life savings to own and used to be
really profitable. Now they can't even sell them. One guy
gave me an example of what happened recently where this
guy was walking out of a seven eleven with two
(18:15):
six packs of beer and the guy that swordener says, Okay,
that's ten dollars, and the guy looks at him and
flips him a five. He says, no, it's ten dollars
and the guy says, you know what, you should be lucky.
I'm giving you five dollars. I mean, that's the culture
we live in. People actually think you can steal it
without any consequence happening, and if they pay even a
little for it, they're doing the store owner of a favor,
(18:37):
which again is a non sustainable life that we're going
to have here, because eventually what's going to happen is
that stores will close, people will start moving out, Businesses
will not expand here. They will actually shut down as
we've seen, and we'll see a spiral of lawlessness that
just keeps growing every single year. And I'm telling you, though,
that as fast as it grew over the last three
(18:58):
and a half years, we can stick it. On day one,
I was going to ask you the power of the DA.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
So you have big plans.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
We all have these big goals things that we want
to do in our in our lives, like, yeah, I'd
love to lose fifty pounds, but I know I'm not
going to wake up tomorrow and be fifty pounds later.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
With all these things that you want to do, these.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Ideas that you have, and knowing the ins and outs
of the job, how much do you think you can
get done? And let's just say that, like, how does
life change in the first year of you being the DA.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Well, I would immediately get the key stakeholders back on board.
So right now, the seven hundred and fifty deputy district
attorneys who work for Gascon, they voted ninety eight percent
to support his recall I've met with now, is that
really ninety eight percent of his own staff of his
own staff, Wow, actually thought he's doing such a bad
job that he should be fired or resigned. I say
(19:48):
that about management around here. Yeah, I'm telling you it's
a shocking statistic. And I've spoken now, I've got their endorsement.
I've spoken now to over three hundred of them before
this election is even over, and I basically said, look,
you're the greatest asset of the DA's office. It's not
the cases of the courtrooms, it's the people. Yeah, And
my job is as the DA is to maximize the
(20:09):
greatest asset, which is you, folks. And I'm going to
get them the resources. I'm going to get them the training.
I'm going to give them.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
You can success that they deserve because of the DA.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
You can just do that or that is that stuff
a fight and take time to actually get those resources.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
I know what it's like around here.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
If I need new toner for the copy that's right
outside of the studio, I got to send a thing
to It's a ticket that goes to some department. They
got to see it, they got to sign somebody like.
That's why I'm saying, like how quickly. Of course things
can be done, right, but that's something you can do.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
DA's offices is down two hundred lawyers right now, but
they're funded for those two hundred lawyers. So I'll send
the word out to the community that we're back in business.
The DA's office is no longer going to be the
butt of late night jokes.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
So it's all the money, it's already there, it's already allocated.
The positions are already created. They just need filled absolutely.
So Okay, nobody.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Wants to work right now for George Gascon's in the county, No,
but they will want to work for Nathan Hawkman's DA's
office here in La County because I respect the people
who actually would be working for me and make that
the focal point of my job, as well as being
partners with law enforcement I mean the champions of victims.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
How quickly do you think it is felt by people
like me and just other regular citizens, business owners.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
I think you're going to see me on TV often
basically touting successes as we start to lower the crime rate,
because I'm going to take my message most importantly to criminals.
You know, in the recent poll, five percent of people
think that George Gascon's doing a good job. I'm convinced
all five percent must be the criminal.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
I was gonna say, where are these five percent? Again?
Speaker 2 (21:43):
I cannot find one person day that I can't find
one person to tell me that they voted for this guy,
even to the.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
People who did vote for him back in twenty twenty. Now,
if you looked at it and said, you know what,
we made a mistake. Yeah, we gave him three and
a half years to prove his social experiment was going
to work. Its failed, and now we're looking forward to change.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
I'm much rad to be talking about you and what
you can do. I did have one question. I didn't
know if this was true or not. Somebody had said
to me that the reason he is so much against
incarcerations because his parents were incarcerated. Do you know if
that's true or not. No, that was actually the DA
in San Francisco. Oh okay, somebody had told me that.
I'm like, oh, I can maybe understand, like why you'd
(22:24):
be a little bit more sensitive. So there's really no
reason to be understanding of it at all.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
None.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
He used to be an LAPD officer. He was the
chief of police of the Mesa Police Department in San
Francisco Police Department, and then became the DA having never
personally prosecuted a case in his whole life, which is
just shocking. Yeah, so what, Jane, I'm going to take
thirty four years experience, by the way, ten of it's
a prosecutor, but twenty four of it's been on the
defense side. So I'm going to bring a three sixty
(22:50):
view to the role of DA in a way that
no DA in history has ever been able to do.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Yeah, Like, what, what's your background? It's a lawyer.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
You become up here in La lifelong you know, married
thirty one years, raised three kids here, Brown University, Stanford
Law School, went right to the US Attorney's office seven
years a federal prosecutor, did the narcotics cases, the gang cases,
the money laundering cases.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Are you're worried, like people making threats towards you or
I've had strong arm you like, I mean, do you
ever worry, like look over your do you find yourself
looking over your shoulder?
Speaker 3 (23:24):
I'd be sad. I'd be kind of worried. I mean
i'd be scared.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
I put some some bad people behind bars when I
was a prosecutor, and yeah, you're always concerned, but it
doesn't stop you from doing the job.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
No, it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
But I mean, like as as anybody ever tried, you know,
confronting you or taking a swing at you or or.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Swing Now, I've received some pretty nasty letters. Yeah, emails, texts,
the whole works. Yeah, I'm freaking violent. I mean, people
get people to text the show and they're they're douchebags.
But it's about some silly radio show. This is like
real life, hardcore violent criminals like that. I would be
I'd be freaked out about that. I totally believe in
(24:01):
the mission of justice, to be quite honest, and just
as I said before, you know, if someone's a true
threat to public safety, I'm going to do my best
to put them behind bars. And if they're not, I'm
going to see if we can work with them, you know,
get them through the system, have their pay their debts
to society, and something like community service or restitution or
a diversion program. Give them that chance, and hopefully we'll
(24:21):
never see them back in the criminal justice system. But
they the criminals, you know, the ones, those repeat offenders
we've been talking about. We'll understand there's a new day
and age if I become DA where we're actually going
to have real consequences for their actions.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Yeah, so you're defense attorney federal prosecutor.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Right and then, and I actually was an assistant Attorney General.
I got a presidential nomination, a unanimous US Senate confirmation
to run the Department. Department of Justice is Tax division
back in d C. Had a one hundred million dollars budget,
three hundred and fifty lawyers doing cases all over the
United States. You know, it's find My wife who had
the three little kids back in LA at the time,
(24:58):
she said, that's a guy in his fur, he's going
to fantasy job camp. You know, it actually was. It
was pre damn cool, you know. And you know, when
you get to wear the white hat and you get
to actually have justice as your client, it's a great
it's a great experience because if you're in the middle
of the case and you all of a sudden see
that case fall down, you have the right and the
(25:19):
obligation to say, we're done. I'm going to dismiss the case.
That's true justice, just as much as it is convicting
someone is letting someone who the evidence is not proved
beyond a reasonable doubt, that person should be let off.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Somebody was telling me that George gascon will really only
do something about it, but really only quote do his
job when it does reach a certain level of publicity.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Absolutely, Like once the public gets that, gets a hang
of it. Like, I forget what the one was here.
Most recently there was something, but it was a big case.
Maybe it was the actor. Yeah, it was the actor case.
And that's just Johnny Wactor.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Is that his name?
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah, sorry, Johnny Whacter. Yeah, you know he's the one.
At three am it was coming back to his car.
Three guys were jacking the CATIALC converter. Yeah, he just
confronted him, not violently, like what's up, guys, and they shot.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Now had not been a guy who had a profile
in any way, shape or form, just an average dude,
and it didn't get all the policity that it got.
Would anything have been done by that, My guess is no,
you would know more than I would.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Well, let's just say based on.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
The record that when it came time to the final
charges one the guy who actually is allegedly shot Johnny Wacter,
he's getting the literally the book thrown at him life
without the possibility of parole. I know many many cases
often that involved not no media attention. They often involve
people of color who've shot other people of color. And
(26:42):
because those cases aren't there, these defendants don't get the
book thrown at him. They're not getting life without the
possibility of parole. Charges, they get the much lower gascon charges.
Because he doesn't believe in basically sending the message to
criminals that if you engage in these acts, the full
extent of the law is going to be thrown against you.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Well, I mean you definitely, you definitely have my vote.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
It just something needs to happen, some change needs to
happen when it comes to all this. And I again
I think people understand. I think that's why you see
the polls the way that they are right now up
as much as you are. And uh, hey man, I
wish you good luck and you know anything else that
you want to you want to tell everybody while we
got you. Yeah, I mean, did I miss something like
(27:27):
what's your favorite football team? Or like what's the best
place in town to eat? Like something good?
Speaker 1 (27:32):
So football team? You know, A lifelong Rams fan, Okay,
even when they moved to Saint Louis, I never gave
up on them. I knew they were coming back. So
I'm going to Rams, all right. Probably Lakers over Clippers
at this point. D your fan forever.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
You can eat only one play, like your your last meal.
Last meal restaurant where you're going doesn't have to be fancy,
but one place a steak. It's a big steak, yeah,
from it's in town.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
I mean, you gotta. It's probably a combination stake. Forty
eight is probably the new contender right now. Mastros was
a mess fighting true back in the old old days.
It was Laurie's prime Rib. If you remember that.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Oh yeah, I've been there at the old school place
for the carts and the yeah, oh yeah, the cars
to bring the entire USC football team there.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Oh and they literally eat the place out. Yeah, because
they bring the cameras afterwards to show more prime rib
being eaten than probably any place on Earth. Yep, yeah, No,
it's a LA is an amazing place. I'm not gonna leave.
Part of the reason I'm running for das I refuse
to have a guy come in from San Francisco destroyed
the public safety there, come to La, destroy our public
(28:38):
safety and get you, me or any of your listeners
to leave. I'm staying here and we're just going to
get him gone.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
What do you need everybody to do? What are you
asking your websites vote for you? But like, what can
what can? What else can people do?
Speaker 1 (28:49):
So what people can do is go on the website
is probably the best portal. It's my name, Nathan Hawkman
hoc h m ai t the.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Girl that was on on the all of the internet.
You didn't see that.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
I did not see that. Ah, dude, I want you
under oath. I need you under oath. Nathan, I must
have been think you might have seen it. It took over
the internet. Look it up when you leave here.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Absolutely well, all right, people go on there on there
on the website if they want Hawk donate you can
certainly donate up to fifteen hundred dollars, but I've got
donations from five dollars to fifteen hundred and it gets
us the media time.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Actually, then go out and get the message out there.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
And you've got the money, You've got the money to
fight or whoever comes in trajectory.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Yeah, people want a lawn sign. You can sign up
and get a lawn sign. We'll have it delivered to you.
And just social media. Just make sure that people actually
know who to vote, to vote, and then who to
vote for.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
Nathan Hawkman.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
H o k h h O h o h.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
You'll when you see it Hawkman. Just remember Hawkman, right.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
And because again, the only person I fear at this point,
and you we talked about that, you know, you hope
that this goes well. The person I fear is the
uninformed voter. Okay, people somehow don't get your message, don't
listen to the show today and hear from me, and
they get to the ballot and they literally it's a
coin flip between me and Gascon because if they get
any information about how bad he is and what I
(30:17):
can do to change things, I feel like knows that
ten out of ten times.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
That's what I mean.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
I feel like so many people know the door the
gas gon like they'll go, oh, that's not good.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Yeah, Like there's an association there.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah, if you want to remember it, just say divide
the word gas and then cons. She's been running a
con on us for the last three and a half years.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Yeah, and everybody's gassed out. Yep, I'm ask one. All right, Well, Nathan,
thank you so much, Nathan Hawkman. Everybody running for district attorney,
super important race. This will affect your quality of life,
and I appreciate you taking some time.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Man, Oh you think kidding? This has been an honor.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Like I said, I never I never do this, but
I really wanted to talk to you because I really
wanted to kind of get the behind the scenes of
how exactly you could hear about Like, oh, that's an
important job, but what can you do. You can make
a promise, but what are you really able to do?
What's realistic? And so I think you've got a good plan.
Get a lot of books, man, start throwing them at
these guys.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Absolutely
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