Oakland DA's soft-on-crime policies push victims' parents to fight back
Brenda Grisham, mother of a slain Oakland teen, criticizes Oakland D.A. Pamela Price's soft-on-crime policies that she believes favor criminals.
Pamela Price, the progressive prosecutor of Alameda County, California, near San Francisco, is facing protests and a call for her recall amid a storm of criticism for her response to a family whose toddler was murdered in a suspected gang shooting on a public highway.
An informal Change.org petition demanding her recall has garnered more than 14,000 signatures. It takes issue with a handful of other cases in which the new left-wing district attorney has allegedly gone soft on criminals.
In one, her office offered a 15-year plea deal to a man accused of three murders.
"Once we get enough signatures we will start the formal recall process," the organizers wrote.
Slain toddler Jasper Wu, left, and Alameda County DA Pamela Price. (KTVU/Getty Images )
Price drew backlash last month after telling supporters of the Wu family, who lost their toddler son Jasper in a gang-related shootout on Interstate 880, that her office was looking into a way to punish the suspects without prison time.
Price's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. In a video she posted last week, the DA called her critics racist and said her office was "still reviewing" Jasper's case.
Protesters in support of Jasper Wu's family show up outside the Alameda County Courthouse. (KTVU )
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One-year-old Jasper Wu died in the crossfire of a gang shootout on Interstate 880 in 2021. Of the four suspects, three were charged with murder, and the other died in another shootout before he could face a judge.
"There's nothing that our justice system can do that will relieve or remove the pain of losing their child," Price, who took office in January, said in a statement. "Nothing."
WATCH: Alameda County DA pushes back against critics in toddler death case
In the video posted to the DA's website last week, Price said she met with Jasper's parents and told them that the suspects "are charged with very serious crimes, and they will be held accountable."
"We have not made any decisions about what charges to pursue or what not to pursue," she said. "We are still reviewing the case."
She did not address the possibility of prison time.
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Price's office recently announced murder charges against three other suspected gang members in a similar shooting that also took place on Interstate 880 and also left a child dead.
Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, left, and Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon. (Pamela Price/Instagram)
"This behavior is absolutely unacceptable. We will not stand for gun violence and these three defendants will be held accountable for their despicable actions."
In a statement, the National Asian Pacific Islanders Prosecutors Association called on Price to apologize for the fiasco and to prosecute the suspects.
According to an interview published last month at the University of California, Berkeley, where Price attended law school, the newly elected prosecutor "seeks to reduce gun violence and mass incarceration while rooting out racial, socioeconomic, and gender disparities within the county’s criminal legal system."
Chesa Boudin during an appearance on the SF City Insider podcast at the San Francisco Chronicle in San Francisco Aug. 28, 2019. The former San Francisco district attorney was kicked out of office in a recall election last year. (Yalonda M. James/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
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"Pamela Price, like San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin, ran on the vague term social justice, and bringing justice and compassion to the community," said Lou Barberini, a former San Francisco police officer and Bay Area columnist. "Then when voters see those terms in practice they are alarmed at its true meaning."
Boudin's progressive policies resulted in voters kicking him out of office in his own recall election.
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